Subject Staging and Communication Power Digital

In contrast to face-to-face communication, digital communication lacks conventional speaker positions. These must first be established through social practices of communication. This is especially true for very low-structured, discursive media formats such as online comment sections. Our contribution asks how actors in such settings manage to establish an intelligible subject positioning. To this end, we conduct a case analysis based on the online commentary section of ZEIT online (ZON). We assume that the participants in the discourse are interested in appearing as sovereign subjects by succeeding in setting up frames of conversation that other participants follow. If actors succeed in establishing such a conversational framework, we speak, following Jo Reichertz, of the attainment of communicative power.