Unborn Discussion

UNBORN DISCUSSION A VISUAL REPORT ABOUT THE ABORTION CONTROVERSY WITHIN THE ITALIAN SOCIETY, AS IT IS POINTED OUT ON THE WEB

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Politecnico di Milano - Scuola del Design - a.y. 2012 - 2013 M.Sc. Communication Design Laboratorio di Sintesi Finale sez. C3 Professors : Paolo Ciuccarelli - Stefano Mandato - Donato Ricci - Tommaso Venturini - Salvatore Zingale Teaching Assistants: Matteo Azzi - Michele Mauri - Azzurra Pini Project by: Alberto Barone Maria Luisa Bertazzoni Martina Elisa Cecchi Elisabetta Ghezzi Alberto Grammatico

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ABORTION CONTROVERSY 1.1 1.2 1.3

Why Italy?

Why abortion?

Research demand

RESEARCH PROTOCOL 10 12 12

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2.1 2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.4

Defining the queries Categorizing primary links Queries and primary links Queries proliferacy Actors found by more than one query Three dialogue types

NEGOTIATION DIALOGUE 16 19 19 19 20 22

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REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE 4.1 Defining a corpus of links 4.2 Network of actors 4.2.1 Passively linked actors 4.2.2 Actively linking actors 4.3 Dialogue between macroareas 4.4 Matching orientations, macro-areas and site typology 4.5 Conclusion 4.6 Referential dialogue corpus

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52 54 55

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.5.1 5.5.2 5.6 5.6.1 5.6.2 5.7 5.8

Actors allowing comments Research field and page categorization Actors and dialogue types Comments categorization Links and comments characteristics Links orientation in relation to comments Comments orientation in relation to links Semantic analysis of the comments Orientations and semantic groups Shared words Conclusion Confrontation dialogue corpus

3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8

Wikipedia case study Categorizing page changes Changes and orientations Edits, edit wars and density of changes Changes hot themes Orientations and authors Conclusion Negotiation dialogue corpus

26 26 29 29 32 38 39 39

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CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE 42 44 44 45 48

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

RESEARCH ANSWERS 60 60 62 66 68 68 72 74 76 77 79 80

6.1 6.2

An unborn discussion Guidelines for dialogue building

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PREFACE

Family planning has been a critical topic over the ages and is still one of the most discussed controversies.

While human rights declare freedom for family planning choices as mandatory, reality is not as simple as theory.

As a matter of fact, family planning is accomplished through tools, facilities, regulations, but it is also susceptible to moral values, cultural traditions and personal beliefs.

For this reason Family Planning is a hot-topic in several countries: not only where enabling tools are not accessible or guaranteed, but also in countries where, despite the laws assuring this right, other factors such as morality and ethics have a relevant role in shaping people’s choices.

It is clear that systems within each country’s social structure like health, govern, religion, culture, etc have a central role in this issue, as they define regulations, tabus, moral issues and values that constitute a barrier or an incentive to Family Planning options. Moreover, these systems frequently have conflicting points of view, fact that often leads to harsh internal conflicts.

Since the absence of a right-or-wrong position is the very reason of the controversial nature of the issue, the dispute lasts and cannot be definitively solved. That is also the reason why the discussion itself is neither positive nor negative, it is the approach to the debate that makes the difference.

It can either be the mere battle of one party against another, or a confrontation built on a discussion and a dialogue that, finally, could lead to a new maturity and an improvement of the society.

And that’s what our report aims to analyze.

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01 ABORTION CONTROVERSY Family Planning is such a wide and complex issue that we were forced to narrow our research to one aspect and one context.

Consequently, we focused on the debate around abortion in Italy as it is pointed out on the web.

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Abortion controversy

“IN THE COMPLEXITY OF THE ISSUE, WE FOUND ABORTION TO BE THE MOST INTERESTING POINT TO FOCUS ON, BEING A BORDERLINE CASE WITHIN FAMILY PLANNING CONTROVERSY. �

1.1 WHY ITALY?

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Previously, we studied the developing of the debate in a selection of 20 countries chosen by geographic position and levels of unmet need for Family Planning.

Each of these countries has been disassembled into seven indexed systems -Health, Govern, Religion, Culture, Society, Media, Developmentwith the aim of identifying how they are sided towards the issue. In particular, the indexes we have considered for this analysis are: health index, democracy index, religion distribution and importance, life expectancy index, literacy index, press freedom index, gender equality index, development index.

In this visual analysis the existence of a controversy is shown by the fact that systems do not line up but shape peaks according to their different points of view. As a consequence, the severity of the debate in each country can be considered higher in those countries where the gap between the highest and the lowest peak is bigger, since two or more systems cover diametrically opposed positions.

For example, in Italy the highest gap is between medicine, that tries to provide accessibility to every contraception method, and religion, that claims no contraception should be allowed except for abstinence or temperature control.

Abortion controversy

POSTER DEVELOPING OF THE DEBATE ANALYZED BY COUNTRY

U.S.A.

FRANCE

51%

50%

KENYA

CHINA

PARAGUAY

INDIA

BOLIVIA

HAITI

EGYPT

THAILAND

55%

UGANDA

50%

46%

PHILIPPINES

TURKEY

71%

63%

62%

PAKISTAN

BRAZIL

53%

45%

56%

56%

BULGARIA

52%

43%

39%

SENEGAL

ITALY

38%

35%

30%

28%

27%

ZIMBABWE

YEMEN

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Abortion controversy

Alike, interesting countries by the presence of opposing sides are Bolivia, Brazil, China, Haiti, Paraguay, Philippines.

Our choice has been to analyze the Italian debate, firstly because of the impossibility to carry out the research in languages ​​we do not know, secondly because of our curiosity and interest in studying our own society.

1.2 WHY ABORTION?

1.3 RESEARCH DEMAND

In the complexity of the issue, we found abortion to be the most interesting point to focus on, being a borderline case within Family Planning controversy. As such, it highlights the debate and extremes the positions, particularly because of the clash of two fundamental human rights: the right to live and the right to free family planning.

Defined our case study as the abortion issue within the Italian society we proceeded setting a new research aim.

From the previous visual analysis we have the confirmation of the existence of the controversy and of how the Italian systems take sides.

Since in Italy they are respectively granted by the Constitution and by the “Law 194” (Legge n.194, 22 Maggio 1978), abortion in this country is strongly discussed both ethically, ideologically and juridically.

For these reasons such a borderline case allows us to better identify and study the opposed actors’ tendencies and behaviours.

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With this report we are not interested in finding out how the clashing of their points of view develops, but in their approach to the controversy.

Doing so we aim to define if the presence of this discussion is expression of confrontation or if it’s just stance taking.

Therefore our driving question is the following.

Abortion controversy

IS THE POSITION OF THE OPPONENT ACTORS WITHIN THE ABORTION CONTROVERSY THE RESULT OF A DIALOGUE OR IS IT THE CONSEQUENCE OF A SELF BELIEF?

30% ITALY

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RESEARCH PROTOCOL

Set our research range, we aimed to verify and analyze the relationships among the actors taking part in the discussion, so as to identify and understand whether and how these sides relate to each other.

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Research protocol

“ABORTO + DIRITTO DI VITA, FOLLOWED BY THE COMBINATION OF INTERRUZIONE VOLONTARIA DI GRAVIDANZA + DISCUSSIONE ARE THE MOST COMMON CONNOTATIONS IN ITALY.”

2.1 DEFINING THE QUERIES

First we have tried to define a corpus of urls which included the main exponents of the issue.

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Aware that these would have limited our study range, we chose them so as to find representative results of every possible aspect of the dispute.

the issue, through human rights, the discussed topics and the actors’ sides towards them.

Moreover, intersecting the word “discussione” with the lexical items, we wanted to achieve sub partes descriptions. These six queries were interrupted at the 50th result.

With such an aim we intersected the lexical variable (“Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” vs “Aborto”) with either one of the two opposing rights (“diritto alla vita” vs “diritto di scelta”) or the word “discussione”, for a total of six queries. The reason of this was to find, through lexis, results with both technical and colloquial approaches to

However, not all the 300 results were useful for our research demand. For this reason we carried out a first cleaning of all the links with the following characteristics: not found, foreign language, out of topic (eg. animal abortion), attached file (eg. pdf, ptt) and news not concerning Italy.

We ended up defining a list of 173 relevant urls.

Research protocol

GRAPH 1P QUERIES DEFINITION AND ANALYSIS

INTERRUZIONE VOLONTARIA DI GRAVIDANZA

6 QUERIES

To reach a more educated target

50 links for each query and their classification

“DIRITTO ALLA VITA”

LINKS (173)

DISCUSSIONE “DIRITTO DI SCELTA DOMAINS (151)

ABORTO To reach a less educated target

G Categories, typology of website and orientation

Queries prolificacy and results orientation

Actors found with more than one query

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Research protocol

GRAPH 2a QUERIES PROLIFICACY AND RESULTS ORIENTATION

LEGEND PRO LIFE

HUMAN RIGHTS

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

OTHER VIEWS Discussione

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

Q6

VOCABULARY

Diritto di scelta

Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza

Diritto alla vita

Aborto

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N/ PRO LIFE

Research protocol

2.2 CATEGORIZING PRIMARY LINKS

2.3 QUERIES AND PRIMARY LINKS

2.3.1 QUERIES PROLIFERACY

In order to make the found links of interest to the analysis we believed it was necessary to categorize them. The wikipedia page about abortion discussion found with the query (“aborto” + “discussione”) was helpful in this, as it let us understand alignments, actors and motivations fostering the dispute.

At this point a first result occurred to us by matching the freshly occurred categorization, the queries matrix and the primary 173.

Particularly the queries prolificacy pointed out the hottest themes and how they are related to a specific side. On the other hand we were able to identify actors facing the issue from different points of view, and therefore found by more than one query.

The most prolific query was “aborto + diritto di vita”, followed by “Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza + discussione”, highlighting indeed that these are the most common connotations in Italy. They also indicated that the more scientific the language is, the more sub-partis is the content; vice versa who chooses a colloquial register is expressing a personal point of view.

Through this focus reading we learned that the opposite sides are defined as “pro life” if against abortion and “pro choice” if supporting free choice, and we had the confirmation of the existence of more active groups of actors, such as religion.

According to the information provided by Wikipedia we built our link categorization, on which every step of our research is based.

Each of the 173 primary links has been classified according to the following criteria: -Type of website: database, blog, fourm, association website, institutional website, portal, informative website.

-Macro-areas: religion, cultural, news, social, feminine, feminist, juridical, health.

-Tendency: prolife, neutral/prolife, neutral, neutral/prochoice, prochoice.

Matching this reasoning to the 173 primary link categorization, it is possible to notice that the most prolific query (“aborto + diritto alla vita”) mainly gets pro life results, expressing the fact that pro life people generally use the word abortion with a negative connotation to take stance towards the human right to live.

On the other hand, the results of the query (“interruzione volontaria di gravidanza + discussione”) are mostly pro choice and neutral/pro choice, pointing out that pro choice side chooses the technical word “Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” with a neutral or positive connotation and embraces a wider range of aspects.

The fewest number of results are found by the combination “aborto + discussione”, underlining again that who uses a colloquial register is not interested in taking into consideration a wide number of aspects besides their own.

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Research protocol

2.3.2 ACTORS FOUND

BY MORE THAN ONE QUERY

In conclusion it seems that the result orientation tendency is strictly connected to the lexical variable, since those who are interested in the debate general aspects generally use a more neutral and technical register, whereas those who choose a familiar language are interested in expressing their own point of view, especially in relation to the right to life.

For each of these primary 173 links we wanted to verify whether and which ones had been found by more than one query, since being reached by more than one query combination means the actor is facing the issue from different points of view, due either to the lexical approach or to the quotation of a certain human right.

This study shows that the web site orientation and its typology are the two decisive aspects in defining its wider approach to the issue.

In fact, most of the results found through more than one query have almost neutral orientation: neutral, neutral/pro life or neutral/pro choice.

The only website with an extreme orientation is infoaut.org which uses both the lexical variables “aborto” and “Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” referring to the right to choose. This lexical variety can be explained by the fact that it is an informative web site.

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Similarly, half of the actors found with more than one query are informative web sites, which acting in the net as news and information providers tend to use a higher number of combinations between lexis and rights. For instance avvenire. it (neutral/pro life orientation) uses both “aborto” and “Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” referring to the right to life; corriere.it as well uses

heterogeneous lexis though referring to the right of choosing.

Also in the pages found with the highest number of different queries (respectively 3 and 4), presentepassato.it and it.answer.yahoo.com, the type of website was crucial.

The first one, found through the queries “aborto” + “diritto alla vita”, “aborto” + “diritto di scelta”, “interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” + “diritto alla vita” is a portal, as such having a great quantity of information and links.

The latter, found through all the combinations with “aborto” and “interruzione volontaria di gravidanza” + “diritto di scelta”, is a forum, so the reason for its heterogeneity can be attributed to the variety of its target and in fact it gathers information, questions, anxieties and requests that embrace different aspects of the issue.

Research protocol

GRAPH 2b ACTORS FOUND WITH MORE THAN ONE QUERY LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

aborto "diritto alla vita"

OFF TOPIC

Q1

treccani.it

aborto "diritto di scelta"

Q6

Q2

interruzione volontaria di gravidanza dibattito

presentepassato.it

avvenire.it

informative website - religion

corriere.it informative website - web

avvenire.it corriere.it

it.answers.yahoo.com forum - health

infoaut.org

forum.alfemminile.com forum - feminine

it.answers.yahoo.com

aborto discussione

Q5

forum.alfemminile.com

interruzione volontaria di gravidanza "diritto di scelta"

Q3

treccani.it

informative website - culture

presentepassato.it portal - culture

thomasinternational.org

thomasinternational.org

association website - bioethics Q4

interruzione volontaria di gravidanza "diritto alla vita"

infoaut.org

informative website - health 21

Research protocol

2.4 THREE DIALOGUE TYPES

While cleaning and categorizing the primary links we noticed that the answer to our research demand could be found through three different relationships among the actors of the controversy.

As a matter of fact, these relations shape three types of dialogue: - negotiation of contents within a page, as in Wikipedia; - referentiality of one web page towards other links, corresponding to the actor’s willingness to dialogue with other actors; - confrontation by adding comments, established within the page itself, expressing the will of gathering any point of view. the difference between the last two kinds of dialogues lies in the openness to receiving critics: linking other sites assumes you are choosing your counterpart whereas giving the opportunity to comment means you are open to receive direct and visible critics on your own page.

In order to study these three types of dialogues we devised a branch of our protocol for each kind of relationship among the actors, focusing on their peculiarities.

The first one, corresponding to negotiation dialogue in Wikipedia, has been carried out without using any digital method, but it was based 22

exclusively on manual selection and classification of the page changes.

The second protocol branch about referentiality was built using Harvester on the 173 query results, both to widen the number of actors taken into account and to discover their relations. Cleaning and categorizing Harvester results, we defined our corpus of actors that was visualized using to Gephi.

As for the final branch of analysis about confrontation dialogue, we selected the links that offered the possibility to add comments and, after a careful reading and classification of each one, we related their characteristics to the web site they are posted in. Afterwards, Alchemy API has been used to carry out a semantic analysis to investigate themes and modalities that every side uses to support their thesis.

Research protocol

GRAPH 2P PROTOCOL BRANCHES

6 QUERIES DOMAINS (151)

Queries’ prolificacy and results orientation

Actors found with more than one query

NEGOTIATION DIALOGUE

REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE

CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE

Numbers and bytes of changes over the years

Most cited and most citing actors

Actors allowing confrontation dialogue

Density and correspondance with historical events

Actors placement by orientation

Links orientation in relation to comments

Changes by authors

Orientations by macroareae and site typology

Comments orientation in relations to links Semantic groups usage by orientation

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NEGOTIATION DIALOGUE Wikipedia page about abortion discussion is the result of a negotiation among authors in desagree on the contents to be included and on their connotation.

Consequently, we chose it for its usefulness to study the developing of the collision among opposed sides.

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Negotiation dialogue

“WE HAD THE CONFIRMATION THAT OPPOSITE SIDES ARE DEFINED AS PRO LIFE AND PRO CHOICE AND WE LEARNED ABOUT MORE ACTIVE GROUPS OF ACTORS.”

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3.1 WIKIPEDIA CASE STUDY

3.2 CATEGORIZING PAGE CHANGES

Wikipedia goal is to be encyclopaedic, therefore neutral. At the same time it is built through the collaboration of several contributors that don’t necessarily share the same consideration about the contents of the page.

Searching out the page changes in Wikipedia chronology, we obtained a sequence of 289 changes, from which we excluded the ones made by bots (web robots), the spelling corrections and the format changes as they did not bring any meaning alteration to the page, thus obtaining 147 relevant changes.

Thence, as outspoken in the very name chosen by the authors, the page about abortion discussion is the more or less stable result of a negotiation among juxtaposed sides, variously divided on the contents to be included and on their connotation.

This collision dialogue is the reason why we decided to analyze relations between opposed sides through Wikipedia case study.

These were already divided by year, month, day and number of bytes (added or removed), and comparing each paragraph before and after the change, we have further classified them into previously defined orientations: pro life, neutral/ pro life, neutral, neutral/pro choice, pro choice.

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3P PROTOCOL FOR NEGOTIATION DIALOGUE ANALYSIS

289 EDITS

PAGE CONTENT

Removed bots and spelling mistakes

Reading and focus all over the page analysed

ORIENTATION

147 EDITS

ACTORS Classification for orientation and entity of the edit

Number and bytes of changes over the years

Density and correspondance with historical events

Changes by author

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Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3a NUMBER AND AND BYTES OF CHANGES OVER THE YEARS 40.000 35.000 30.000 10

25.000

37.999

20.000

bytes

86

15.000 5

10.000

CREATION 147 EDITS

5.000

0

0

16.388

bytes

-5.000 -10.000

61

5

-15.000 -20.000 12

-25.000 10

60.349 bytes

-30.000 -35.000 -40.000 -45.000 -50.000

LEGENDA -55.000

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N/PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

-60.000

EDIT BYTES

-65.000

12

PRO LIFE

Negotiation dialogue

3.3 CHANGES AND ORIENTATIONS

3.4 EDITS, EDIT WARS AND DENSITY OF CHANGES

First of all we wanted to have a general idea about the state of the changes orientation from the origin of the page until nowadays, divided according to their function of adding or erasing of contents. We compared both the discrete number of changes, hint of the density of the discussion, and the corresponding size, expressed in number of bytes.

To verify such a tendency, we studied the chronological sequence of the 147 changes, visualizing them in accordance to their byte number to highlight the exact correspondence of the size of added or removed bytes. Then we identified and analyzed the edit wars, that are the succession of more than three changes concerning the same sentence or group of sentences, and the generic edits. We observed that the majority of the discussions ends in a neutral edit, either they add or delete bytes: this confirms the negotiation development hypothesized in the previous visualization.

From this comparison it appeared that though the majority of changes was neutral, there was also a consistent number of partisan changes, especially in adding contents. That led us to the conviction that the negotiation proceeds through the adding of partisan contents imposing a point of view and a further restoration of neutrality.

A relevant example of this tendency can be found at the end of 2008, when, after a strongly pro life edit war, it was necessary to protect the page to maintain it neutral.

Moreover, in the visualization the time expansion and restriction show the negotiation density was higher at the beginning (from 2006 to 2008). In fact with time, the discussion faded, and the page achieved a certain stability, proposing a more shared vision of the topic.

Since the edits density in time was not constant, we decided to connect the contemporary historic events, preceding 12 December 2012, to the moments with the highest density of changes in order to verify a possible correspondence between them.

It’s interesting to notice how the discussion rises in the days following an event. The most meaningful example of this occurred on 19th February 2008, when the news reported of a Chinese woman’s back-street abortion in Florence, raising such a dense edit war that it was necessary to protect the page.

In conclusion, we can assume that in most of the cases the negotiation dialogue is stirred by contemporary events because they either lead to update the content or arouse the expression of personal opinions.

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Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3b DENSITY AND CORRISPONDANCE WITH HYSTORICAL EVENTS

2006

YEAR 10

MONTH

2007

11

4

5

6

7

12

11

8

1

10000

1000

500

0

500

-1000

-10000

-20000

28.09.06 10.05.07 Pope speech against abortion

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08.11.06 America: rejected the decree about parents information in underage abortion

10.04.07 European Court of Humans Rights senteces Poland for refusing therapeutic abortion

10.06.07 19.08.07 Clash between catholic church and Amnesty

12.12.07 Giuliano Ferrara starts a strong pro life awarness campaign

10

08

17

15

14

06 13

09

08

07

21

20

02

12 01

08

11

01

30

28

12

09

22

02

0

Negotiation dialogue

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

2008

2

6

7 6 8

5

7

15

23

17

1

03 17 01

11

9

18

7

05

4

13 22

3

11 12

26

2

06

9

02

5

2

OFF TOPIC

EVENTS

2010

2009

1

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE EDITS

EDIT WARS

19.02.08 In Florence a chinese woman has an illegal abortion

05

20

03

20

26

25

23

22

21

20

17

15

14

16 23 26 13

13

11

10

PAGE PROTECTION

16.07.09 RU 486 becames avaible in Italy and Italian Government says no about abortion for family planning

07.06.12 13.05.12 Teenager in Spoleto wants an In Rome a walking for life with politic exponents abortion without parents and Law 194 ends at the Constitutional Court

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Negotiation dialogue

3.5 CHANGES HOT THEMES

This analysis brought us to focus on some interesting edit wars emphasizing the hot topics, leading to the most heated moments of negotiation.

The most interesting example refers to 28th April 2007, when the negotiation concerned the definition of the beginning of life, particularly in the usage of the scientific term “organism” and the word “human being” underlining a pro life inclination. The discussion ended up with the use of both terms as “sviluppo di un organismo umano” (development of a human organism) in order to have a neutral definition of what is not a fully formed human but still a human being. It’s also interesting to notice that few days before the beginning of this edit war an event in Poland drew attention to the issue.

Another interesting edit war started on 08th November 2007; it wondered if the right to life, present in the Declaration of Human Rights, referred also to the embryo. The discussion ended up with the removal of the quote because that document does not specify if the embryo is to be considered a human being.

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A further edit war dated 20th February 2008 dealt with the consideration of abortion as a murder, to be persecuted by law. Some sentences are deleted because they support pro life thesis too strongly.

We also considered some interesting edits, made of just two changes, an addition and a removal of bytes, which resulted to be consequence of personal opinions, mainly pro life, and suddenly erased.

On the 21st August 2007 Hitler was quoted to support the pro life thesis as choosing abortion means considering the fetus as Hitler considered the Jews: less than a man. Then it was mentioned the role of killing in nature comparing the female mantis to a woman choosing to abort. The paragraph referred also to Aristotele’s idea of potential human being. In the end all these quotes were deleted as they expressed a very extreme pro life position and were not the outcome of community discussion.

On the 13th January 2008 the paragraph about “Legal abortion as a supposed remedy for illegal abortion”, removed without the community agreement was restored. We infer that it was a pro life removal because the paragraph claimed that legal abortion could be a solution to illegal abortion.

On 10th January 2008 a clearly pro life comment is added suggesting that if a fetus can be killed as it is not an independent living, then every child under two years old could be killed for the same reason. This is obviously a personal comment, external to the discussion within wikipedia.

On 15th May 2012 another personal pro life comment is added probably connected to the political demonstration in Rome.

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3c EDIT WAR EXAMPLE WHEN DOES LIFE BEGIN?

DAY.MONTH. YEAR

28.04.07 “organism evolution” becomes “growth of a human being”

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

30.04.07

“preventing the evolution of an organism that would become a human being” is modified into “preventing the growth of a human being inside the uterus of the mother during the weeks following conception” The phrase is changed into “stopping the evolution of a human being inside the uterus”

Again changed into “the devolopment of a human organism (the embryo, then evolving in fetus)”

European Court of Humans Rights senteces Poland for refusing therapeutic abortion 33

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3d EDIT WAR EXAMPLE: RIGHT TO LIVE FOR THE HEMBRIO?

DAY.MONTH.YEAR

“The anti-abortionists argue that the embryo is already a human being as already mentioned in the Warnock Report”

Delete the quotation of the Declaration of Human Rights because that document doesn’t specify whether it is applied to the embryo “The anti-abortionists argue that the embryo is already a human being with the theory inside the Warnock Report”

“The thesis against abortion concern the right to life, one of the fundamental right recoghizes also by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

08.11.07

The quote is added again The Warnock Report quotation is deleted After the Declaration of Human Rights quotation is added in brackets“(Declaration that makes no reference to the hypothesis that the embryo is a life)

Delete the comment into brackets

Re-add the comment Delete the comment The quotation of the Declaration of Human Rights is finally removed 34

09.11.07 LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3e EDIT WAR EXAMPLE: ROLE OF STATE, LAW AND HEALTH CARE DAY.MONTH.YEAR Removing bytes but adding “According to the anti-abortionists neither the law nor the individual would have the right to decide on the life of the new creature .. It is an inhuman practice that should be banned ... The State should not be the guarantor of that. “

20.02.08 21.02.08

Re-added

Deleted

22.02.08 Deleted

Deleted “and should be pursued by law ”

“Abortion should not be charged by the National Health System “ “For the anti-abortionist, abortion is a murder, the elimination of a real person. The State should prohibit and prosecute those who practice including the woman”

23.02.08

“Abortion is murder and should be pursued by law “

25.02.08

Re-added

Deleted

Deleted

26.02.08

In Florence a chinese teenager woman has an illegal abortion using kitchen tools 35

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3f EDIT EXAMPLE: HITLER AND THE VALUE OF KILLING

DAY.MONTH.YEAR

+10 516

-10 551 Delete

21.08.07

GRAPH 3g EDIT EXAMPLE: REMOVAL WITHOUT COMMUNITY DISCUSSION

Adding of three ideas to support the opposition to abortion : - by choosing abortion you consider the fetus a lesser human being as Hitler considered the Jews lesser man until exterminating million of them; - although the woman often have an abortion naturally this does not justify his voluntary choice to kill.

This act always implies for humanity a judgment: this is different from what happen in nature as the female of the praying mantis kills the male after coupling; - Aristotele described the fetus as a human beign in power who would later become child. Just as a child is a person in power that will become an adult.

-10 144 The paragraph “Legal abortion as a supposed remedy for illegal abortion� is suddenly removed

13.01.08

The paragraph is restored

+10 144 36

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3h EDIT EXAMPLE: KILLING A FETUS, KILLING A CHILD

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

DAY.MONTH.YEAR

10.01.08 Delete

11.01.08

Addition of the phrase “you cannot kill the fetus because it hasn’t vital autonomy, a condition that is normally reached around two years old, because this would legitimize the killing of any child”

GRAPH 3i DEPTEDIT EXAMPLE: ABORTION SUCKS

Delete

15.05.12

Addition of a personal comment “It sucks that someone aborts a child inside herself ”

In Rome is organized a walking for life with politic exponents and different associations 37

Negotiation dialogue

GRAPH 3j CHANGES

BY AUTHOR

On the other hand, the unregistered users identified as IP who have modified the page, though fewer, have proportionally made more pro life or neutral/pro life oriented modifications (respectively 5% and 8%, altogether 13%) and only 1% of pro choice or neutral/pro choice alterations. From this we can assume that the IP users are inclined to be pro life and to carry out alterations just once and just moved by their beliefs, not because they are interested in negotiating a neutral development of the page (as a matter of fact, the last three reported examples of edits have been made by IP addresses).

38

5%

Our visualization points out that the majority of the users introducing changes are registered members of Wikipedia and therefore interested in enriching the page with a neutral development of the changes. As a matter of fact, most of the changes they made (48%) were neutral with a balanced number of oriented changes: 11% pro life plus neutral/pro life and 9% neutral/pro choice plus pro choice.

8%

Our last analysis concerned the relationship between the orientation of the 147 changes and the typology of the users undertaking them.

Using the Pivot function of Excel we grouped the changes according to the authors undertaking them and to their typology: ip or user.

14%

3.6 ORIENTATIONS AND AUTHORS

3%

1% IP’S EDITS

2%

6%

5%

7%

USERS’ EDITS

48 %

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

Negotiation dialogue

3.7 CONCLUSION

3.8 NEGOTIATION DIALOGUE CORPUS

Negotiation within the Wikipedia page assumes two dimensions: it is a dialogue and thus an effort to dialogue for the registered members who, though sometimes revealing their orientation are however involved in the attempt to offer an enrichment of the subject through an encountercollision with other points of view, while there is no negotiation at all for IP users carrying out both pro life and neutral alterations to the contents, as they just offer their opinions and then disappear, without actively taking part in the discussion.

The only url taken into consideration for this chapter’s analysis has been: it.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Dibattito_sull’aborto

Moreover, the relevant quantity of oriented changes is indicative of the fact that some themes are so strongly felt that even a space meant to be encyclopaedic struggles to maintain its neutrality and keeps on negotiating it.

Particular moments of conflicts and negotiation are often roused by events that stake both the content and the users’ opinions.

Nevertheless, such a difficult negotiation dialogue has brought to a shared vision of the subject, shown by the fading density of the edits after the first two years of the page.

Finally, it seemed to us that the hot topics reflected the human rights variable of our queries, reassuring us on their relevance and on the reliability of the obtained results we are using in the second branch of our analysis.

39

40

04

REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE This second branch of the research has been developed to study the referentiality relation among websites, corresponding to one actor’s willingness to link towards others and viceversa to be linked by other actors.

41

Referential dialogue

“WITHIN THE REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE, EACH SIDE TENDS TO CLOSE AND DEVELOP A ONE-WAY DIALOGUE INSTEAD OF A TRUE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THEM�

4.1 DEFINING A CORPUS OF LINKS

After categorizing the first 173 complete urls -found by the six queries- into types of website, macro-areas and orientations, we have decided to extend the number of actors to take into consideration.

42

For this reason we used Harvester tool on each of these 173 urls, and we selected the obtained results using the same criteria used for the primary link selection, cutting out: not found links, foreign languages, out of topics, attached files, news about foreign countries if not concerning the Italian situation. So we obtained a wider corpus of 395 actors that we categorized according to the

previously set criteria: type of website (database, blog, forum, association website, institutional website, portal, informative website), macro-areas (religion, cultural, news, social, feminine, feminist, juridical, health) and tendency (pro life, neutral/ pro life, neutral, neutral/pro choice, pro choice).

These categorized 395 urls have then been cleaned from everything but their domains, leading to a final corpus of 290 actors, on each we used tool Harvester and Excel VLookup function to define the relations existing among them.

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4P PROTOCOL FOR REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE ANALYSIS

LINKS (173)

Harvester on primary links to define nodes

LINKS (395)

Categories, typology of website and orientation

DOMAINS (290)

H Harvester on all corpus links to define edges

Most cited and most citing actors

Actors placement by orientation

Orientations by macro-area and site tipology

43

Referential dialogue

4.2 NETWORK OF ACTORS

4.2.1 PASSIVELY LINKED ACTORS

Studying the relations occurring among these 290 domains, we aimed to analyze two peculiarities of the referentiality dialogue: the sites mostly referred to and for this relevant in the net and the ones that are important because they set up this referential dialogue. The visualization of these two aspects has been realized using the software Gephi.

We have visualized the most quoted actors representing the importance of each node through its dimension, in proportion to its inlink degree.

Besides that, we decided to report the name of the top-30 cited ones. At this point we used the algorithm Force Atlas 2 to display the actors’ proximity according to the intensity of their relations, and assigned them a colour according to their orientation.

Comparing the two visualizations it is possible to notice that it is extremely hard to find actors that have both high inlink and outlink degrees: they are only zenit.org (pro life) and femminismo-asud.noblogs.org (pro choice).

That confirms the fact that referential dialogue feeds only the relation internal to each side, which tends to close and develop one-way dialogue instead of true confrontation.

44

This visualization evidences the presence of two separate clusters: the left one is formed by pro life and neutral/pro life domains and the rightmost consists of a more scattered combination of neutral, neutral/pro life and pro life sites.

A first analysis of the clusters’ orientation let us notice that the sites mainly linked by pro life are pro life as well; while the heterogeneous orientation of the right cluster shows that neutral actors have a closer dialogue with neutral, neutral/ pro choice and pro choice oriented ones.

It is also notable that informative sites like repubblica.it and corriere.it assume a central role in the visualization spatiality, meaning that they are recognized as the prevalent reference points by every kind of orientation. On the contrary, though an informative site, avvenire.it is in a peripheral position, since it is a reference point mainly for the pro life side. Vatican.va, chiesacattolica.it, tempi.it are nearby, being explicitly catholics sites

and therefore supporting pro life values. Popping out from the right of the graph are the mostly neutral sites governo.it, studenti.it and girlpower. it, probably because of pro choice openness to dialogue with sub-partes sites and embrace a wider range of aspects.

There is also the case of an opinion leader relevant only for the pro choice orientations: femminismoa-sud.noblogs.org (feminist blog).

Referential dialogue

4.2.2 ACTIVELY LINKING ACTORS

Devising a visualization suitable to study the actors that, actively linking, build the referential dialogue, we have used the previous representation but highlighting the outlink degree of every node, deciding to point out only the edges density.

It is thus clear that blogs typically perform this type of dialogue; as a matter of fact, they tend to support their personal opinions quoting other sites that, more or less explicitly, share the same ideology. For instance, the most representative pro life blog (unacasasullaroccia.wordpress.com) links a lot of other sites (ilpensierocristiano. blogspot.it, leportedellaterradimezzo.blogspot. it and filialeecclesiae.wordpress.com), but only within the same orientation area, as shown by its position it the graph.

This clear division between pro life and pro choice sides can be found for every site typology.

It is also interesting to notice that the great majority of the first thirty sites by outlink degree are clearly oriented, and that only three are neutral: treccani.it (online encyclopaedia), studenti.it (student site), ittig.cnr.it (juridical site). The last one is an exception to the above mentioned tendency to dialogue with sites within the same orientation, probably due to its juridical nature. Other exceptions are two informative sites (pontifex.roma.it and zenit.org) that although being pro life link also to differently oriented sites.

The pro choice side is made of dense feedback relations among feminist and anticlerical blogs: femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org, medea.noblogs, femminileplurale.wordpress.com, natafemmina. blogspor.it, save194campania.wordpress.com.

Within this alignment, uaar.it (Italian atheists’ site) seems to seek a dialogue with pro life orientation, or, at a closer sight, it is actually aiming at discrediting opposed ideologies.

45

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4a MOST CITED ACTORS

LEGEND

46PRO LIFE

N/PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4b MOST CITING ACTORS

47

Referential dialogue

4.3 DIALOGUE BETWEEN MACROAREAS

At this point we focused on the actors’ behaviours grouped in macro-areas.

This visualization as well was implemented by Gephi. We have first defined the node dimension as the inlink degree to highlight the opinion leaders importance, and then coloured them according to their orientation. After that we have assigned a y value to the node related to its macro-area (in decreasing order accordingly to the amount of actors) and an x value corresponding to its orientation. We have then run the algorithm Force Atlas, to move the nodes towards the ones with the higher amount of inlink relations, because each actor’s orientation ideally shifts towards the position of the sites he quotes.

The further is a site from its starting point, the more open it is to dialogue with different orientations.

The actors standing on their initial position, on the contrary, don’t set any confrontation but remain self-referencial and isolated.

It is visible that the sites classified as pro life tent to move towards sides with the same orientation, thus forming a self-referential group of pro life and neutral pro life supporters, while neutrals tent to move unto neutral/pro choice and pro choice positions. The macro areas division shows a strong correspondence between pro life orientation 48

4c MACROAREAS PLACEMENT

BY ORIENTATION

MACROAREA PLACEMENT BY ORIENTATION

health

religion

feminist

juridic cultural news

and religion (considering both atheism and all the main religions present in Italy): 88% of the Italian religious sites are pro life. It is interesting to notice the position of the juridical macroarea between neutral and neutral/pro choice and that the bioethical discussion spreads all over the orientations. Feminine and feminist macroareas are obviously neutral or pro choice oriented since directly involved and deeply sensitive to the woman’s right of choice. Cultural, social and news macro-areas are mainly neutral except for some informative sites clearly pro life (eg.avvenire.it).

In conclusion this study shows that there is a close correspondence between the actors’ macro-area and their orientation: who talks about abortion from the juridical point of view will probably have a neutral approach, religious point of view will be

social feminine bioethic

strongly pro life and feminist mainly pro choice.

The only exclusively pro life macro-area is religion and the number of actors talking from a religious point of view is almost equivalent to the amount of the sites belonging to all the other macro-areas.

As for the site typologies, blogs are mainly positioned at the extremes; in fact, blogs are usually used to express personal opinions.

The most active blogs are unacasasullaroccia (prolife) and femminismo.a.sud.blogspot (prochoice). Most of the forums converge into the neutral zone, as they require a respectful expression of contents.

Commonly linked forums are studenti.it and girlpower.it. Databases and institutional sites tend not to take sides as they have the function of conveying neutrality and objectivity.

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4d ACTORS PLACEMENT

BY ORIENTATION

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

agensir.it

vatican.va iltimone.org fisc.it chiesacattolica.it

avvenire.it

liquida.it studenti.it

zenit.org

culturacattolica.it

ilmessaggero.it

tempi.it

libertaepersona.org blog.libero.it

corriere.it governo.it

uaar.it

pianetadonna.it girlpower.it repubblica.it

salute.gov.it

it.wikipedia.org

aied.it

femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org

ilfattoquotidiano.it

laiga.it

vitadidonna.it

lucacoscioni.it

consultadibioetica.org

PROLIFE

NEUTRAL / PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

NEUTRAL / PRO CHOICE

PRO CHOICE

49

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4e TOP 30 CITED ACTORS

BY MACRO-AREA

RELIGION

01. avvenire.it 02. chiesacattolica.it 03. vatican.va 04. zenit.org 05. agensir.it 06. uaar.it 07. iltimone.org 08. fisc.it 09. cultura cattolica.it 10. libertaepersona.org

CULTURAL

SOCIAL

22. governo.it

FEMININE

23. pianetadonna.it 24. girlpower.it 25. vitadidonna.it

FEMINIST

26. femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org

JURIDIC

11. liquida.it 12. studenti.it 13. it.wikipedia.org 14. aied.it

// not found in the top 30

NEWS

BIOETHICS

15. corriere.it 16. repubblica.it 17. tempi.it 18. il messaggero.it 19. blog.libero.it 20. ilfattoquotidiano.it 21.

50 ansa.it

HEALTH

27. salute.gov.it 28. laiga.it

29. consultadibioetica.org 30. lucacoscioni.it

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4e MACROAREAS PLACEMENT

BY ORIENTATION

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

PROLIFE

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

NEUTRAL / PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

NEUTRAL / PRO CHOICE

PRO CHOICE

51

Referential dialogue

4.4 MATCHING ORIENTATIONS, MACRO-AREAS AND SITE TIPOLOGY

This matrix turned out to be a fundamental tool to deduce which and how many platforms each macro-area uses to convey its ideology. Each site typology in fact has features that make it more or less suitable to confrontation, to expression of one’s point of view and to information.

We have chosen to display the different site typologies on X axis, from blogs to databases, according to their decreasing fitness to convey a personal idea, and the macro-areas on the Y axis in decreasing order from top accordingly to the number of actors present in each one, as done in the previous network visualization.

This shows that inside the web debate, the most used platforms are informative sites, blogs and associations’ sites, while databases are the least ones.

In details: - blogs: it is the most widely present typology, and usually characterized by extreme orientations.

That means it is the best tool to dialogue in an auto referential way within the different orientations. The macro-areas that use blogs most are those which hold extreme positions: religion (pro life) and feminist group (pro choice). Blogs are highly used also by social macro-area which express different orientations instead.

-52forums: this site typology is not particularly

GRAPH 4f SITE TIPOLOGY PLACEMENT

BY ORIENTATION

SITE TIPOLOGY PLACEMENT BY ORIENTATION

forum

istitutional site database

association site information site

blog portal

exploited in relation to this issue, only used by the following macro areas: religion, to express pro life ideologies, cultural and feminine, to convey neutral contents.

- association sites: they are mainly religious and consequently pro life, and partially used by health groups to express heterogeneous orientations.

- institutional sites: they are almost all neutral and used only by the juridical area.

- portals: they are mainly used by the health neutral, neutral/pro choice, pro choice area and secondly by the feminine neutral area and by the pro life religious one.

- informative sites: this typology is used by almost all the macro-areas, especially by news (neutral oriented) and by religion (pro life).

-databases: it is the least used and is exploited nearly exclusively by juridical and health areas to

express neutral contents.

It is evident that religion makes use of nearly all the platforms in order to support its ideas, and probably because of this, it maintains a prominent role in the discussion of this topic. Health follows, with a high usage of portals and informative sites.

The news macro-area centers on informative sites, whereas the social area prefers blogs.

This combined analysis allows the identification of the most suitable and efficient platforms in order to effectively reach a certain macro-area.

At the same time it might result useful also to each macro-area in order to verify its presence on the web through a certain platform, and thus implement its use.

Referential dialogue

GRAPH 4g ORIENTATIONS BY MACRO-AREA AND SITE TIPOLOGY

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

religion cultural

MACROCATEGORIES

news

social

feminine feminist juridic

health bioethic

blog

forum

associations site

institutional site

TYPE OF WEBSITE

portal

information site

database

53

Referential dialogue

4.5 CONCLUSION

A study of the web has allowed us to identify a list of the most relevant passively linked and actively linking actors.

The comparison between these two categories, as well as their respective orientations and their ideal proximity to other orientations or isolation, have shown us behaviour trends.

Feminine and feminist macro-areas are clearly sided against religion, expressing the most extreme orientations.

Religion is the largest and most powerful macroarea, and it expresses itself uniformly through several site typologies, followed in that by the health macro-area.

On the other hand we noticed also that the juridical macro-area is the least present in the network, but it is the only one exploiting databases.

Finally, the study demonstrates that referential dialogue nourishes only the relationship internal to each orientation, that generally develop two self-oriented groups of actors: pro life and neutral pro life versus neutral, neutral/pro choice and pro choice.

54

Referential dialogue

4.6 REFERENTIAL DIALOGUE CORPUS

it.answers.yahoo.com presentepassato.it avvenire.it treccani.it zingarate.com zenit.org unacasasullaroccia.wordpress.com tempi.it scienzamarcia.blogspot.it riccardomichelucci.it quieuropa.it profezie3m.altervista.org naiot.it mulino.it morasha.it liceoberchet.it itcrovigo.it ilmessaggero.it iljester.it ildonodellavita.it forum.studenti.it filiaecclesiae.wordpress.com famiglieperaccoglienza.it evangelici.net espresso.repubblica.it elfobruno.ilcannocchiale.it donodellavita.it difendilavita.altervista.org culturacattolica.it cristianocattolico.it

consultadibioetica.org comitatoveritaevita.it camcris.altervista.org blogcattolici.blogspot.it atuttascuola.it amicib.org agoravox.it infoaut.org corriere.it uccronline.it uaar.it torquatiassicurazioni.it radicali.it pubblicogiornale.it pourfemme.it pontifex.roma.it pinkblog.it pastoralespiritualita.it lucacoscioni.it laleggepertutti.it index.ph ilblogdipizzi.blogspot.it gotquestions.org giulia.globalist.it giovani.it aquattromani.altervista.org forum.alfemminile.com staibene.libero.it semedisalute.wordpress.com sanita.italiadeivalori.it

maestrigiardinieri.org ladiscussione.com italia.panorama.it girlpower.it forumetici.it dailystorm.it cattoliciromani.com blog.chatta.it associazionelucacoscioni.it angelinet.com thomasinternational.org xxdonne.net volontariatoinrete.org unicam.it terradinessuno.wordpress.com swif.uniba.it superando.it spaziodi.it senato.it mpv-cav.veneto.it leggioggi.it ittig.cnr.it ilmediano.it gynevra.it giureta.unipa.it edscuola.it demetra.regione.emilia-romagna.it chiesacattolica.it blog.ilmanifesto.it amicidilazzaro.it

55

Referential dialogue

alleanzacattolica.org veritaevita.blogspot.it svss-uspda.ch simlaweb.com save194lazio.wordpress.com quotidianosanita.it noidonne.org no194.org menoepausa.wordpress.com marisamoles.wordpress.com lecceprima.it it.wikipedia.org informarezzo.com iltaccoditalia.info iljournal.it genitoricrescono.com gattogemellianarchici.wordpress.com femminismorivoluzionario.blogspot.it favacarpendiem.wordpress.com epidurale.blogspot.it dazebaonews.it cercounbimbo.wordpress.com banchedati.camera.it animedreamland.forumcommunity.net youmed.it womanjournal.it utilla.it studenti.it sardegnareporter.it ricerca.repubblica.it psichefamiglia.it portaledibioetica.it politicadomani.it opsonline.it 56

narutoshippudenstorm.forumcommunity.net liquida.it laperfettaletizia.com it.bab.la ilsole24ore.com hubmagazine.it gravidanzaonline.it gravidanza.doctissimo.it granellidipsicologia.wordpress.com epicentro.iss.it empatiadonne.it disabili.com diario_estemporaneo.ilcannocchiale.it coordinamentoru486milano.wordpress.com consultoriprivatilaici.net consiglieducativi.it bubus.tuzzato.org bellantelalumia.it auletta99.net alfemminile.com abcsalute.it yourself.it womenews.net vitadidonna.it veritaevita.blogspot.com vengoprima.noblogs.org vatican.va uomovivo.blogspot.it unionefemminile.it ungranellodisale.blogspot.it totustuus.it today.it snlg-iss.it self-helpriparliamone.blogspot.it

sceglitu.it save194campania.wordpress.com saperidoc.it samizdatonline.it saluteolistica.blogspot.it salute24.ilsole24ore.com salute.gov.it romasette.it repubblica.it prolifenews.it progettoculturale.it postaborto.it pilloladelgiornodopo.it pilloladei5giornidopo.it pianetamamma.it pianetadonna.it palazzochigi.it orientecristiano.com obiettoridicoscienzano.wordpress.com nsoe.info normattiva.it noicattolici.it nazioneindiana.com natafemmina.blogspot.it mpv.org movimentovitamilano.it mevd.org messaggeroveneto.gelocal.it menscatholica.wordpress.com medea.noblogs.org mammamsterdam.net losai.eu loccidentale.it libertaepersona.org

Referential dialogue

liberoquotidiano.it libero-news.it libernazione.it leportedellaterradimezzo.blogspot.it legnostorto.com lampidipensiero.wordpress.com laiga.it kattoliko.it it.paperblog.com it.catholic.net iss.it incontraregesu.it iltimone.org iltempo.it ilsecoloxix.it ilpensierocristiano.blogspot.it ilfattoquotidiano.it ilcorpodelledonne.net ilcannocchiale.it guidareferendum.it granderitorno9.blogspot.it governo.it giustizia.it giurcost.org geniofemminile.blogspot.it forumcostituzionale.it fisc.it firmiamo.it fides.org femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org femminileplurale.wordpress.com federvitapiemonte.it family2012.com famigliacristiana.it

erewhon.ticonuno.it donnaemadre.wordpress.com donna.libero.it diredonna.it dipmat.unipg.it crinali.org corsodireligione.it corriereadriatico.it consultoriautogestita.wordpress.com consiglioveneto.it civiltalaica.it christiananswers.net chiesavaldese.org chiesadilibrino.it chiaralalli.com centroaiutoallavita.wordpress.com cavambrosiano.it cattolicesimo-reale.it casamaternita.it carlobellieni.com campariedemaistre.com campaniasuweb.it cadoinpiedi.it blogo.it blogmamma.it blogitalia.it blogbabel.com blog.secularprolife.org blog.libero.it blog.ilcambiamento.it blimunde.it bioetiche.blogspot.it bioeticaefamiglia.it bimboweb.net

bibbiaedu.it bibbia.it benessere4u.it bastabugie.it balcanicaucaso.org associazione-vogliovivere.it associazioneandria.it asianews.it archivio.medicinaepersona.org archividelnovecento.it ansa.it angeloscola.it ambulatoriopopolare.org al-islam.org aied.it agite.eu agenziasir.it agensir.it aftersantana.altervista.org adnkronos.com abortoterapeuticoenon.blogspot.it 30giorni.it 27esimaora.corriere.it

57

58

05

CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE Commenting is a dialogue typology which expresses the actor’s will to gather on their page various opinions, even different from their own, revealing acceptance also of criticism towards one’s own ideas.

59

Confrontation dialogue

“THE EXTREME SIDES ARE NOT WILLING TO DIALOGUE WHILE THERE IS A WIDER OPENNESS TO CONFRONTATION IN THE OTHERS TENDENCIES WE HAVE ANALYSED”

60

5.1 ACTORS ALLOWING COMMENTS

5.2 RESEARCH FIELD AND PAGE CATEGORIZATION

Comments, not taking place on the web but within a site itself, reveal the actor’s will to accept and dialogue also with opposed sides.

Furthermore, it was interesting for us to discover whether the orientation of the comments is related to the orientation of the involved web site.

Finally, expressing a personal opinion, comments are ideal to study the reasons and the themes pursued by different commenters in order to support their orientation side.

For the comment analysis, we have worked on the corpus of 395 pages previously found (consisting of 173 query results and of 222 urls found through Harvester) as we have decided to consider not simply the page domains but the whole urls, so as to analyze as many comments as possible.

Thus we have classified the 395 pages according to their approach to the comments as following: “no possibility to comment”, “home page”, “0 comments” (if it is possible to comment but there are none), “yes comments” (taking note of the number of existing comments).

Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5P PROTOCOL FOR CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE ANALYSIS

Linked Linked and and linking linking networks networks

LINKS (395)

Classified and filtered for comment possibility

LINKS (63)

COMMENTS (2212)

Classified for pertinance and orientation

A First 50 relevant words for each orientation

Actors allowing confrontation dialogue

Links orientation in relation to comments

Comments orientation in relations to links

Semantic groups usage by orientation

61

Confrontation dialogue

5.3 ACTORS AND DIALOGUE TYPES

First of all, we were interested in examining the possibility of a relationship between the links with a wider openness to the dialogue via comments and those open to the above mentioned dialogue via/through quotations.

So we have decided to take into account the 63 pages giving the possibility to add comments (“0 comments” + “n° comments”), to reduce them to their page domains and then to intersect them with the actors’ web.

In this way it was possible to compare the page domain behaviour towards the two dialogue types and to examine whether the web site domains allowing comments were those that dialogue most, according to the referential logic previously studied.

From this it is possible to infer that some sites playing a leading role in the referentiality dialogue because of their number of inlinks, such as vatican.va and zenit.org, disappear as they don’t allow confrontation dialogue through comments.

Other opinion leaders such as uaar.it are active instead in both dialogue types, whereas corriere. it, girlpower.it, alfemminile.com are open to confrontation comments although not linking to other sites.

Some minor opinion leaders as well (eg. the blog unacasasullaroccia) use both dialogue types.

62

It is finally interesting to notice that many personal or association websites (eg. lucacoscioni.it), having few or no connections, dialogue exclusively through comments. In this sub-analysis actors’ dialoguing roles are revalued, expecially in the case of informative websites and blogs. In fact, it appears that confrontation dialogue through comments is especially attempted by prominent opinion leaders (often informative sites) and by minor and unrelated actors (often personal and thematic web sites).

Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5a/b ACTORS

BY DIALOGUE TYPE

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

radicali.it

63

Confrontation dialogue

amicib.org

GRAPH 5a MOST CITED ACTORS ALLOWING CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE

genitoricrescono.com mammamsterdam.net

terradinessuno.wordpress.com

uaar.it espresso.repubblica.it

epidurale.blogspot.it

veritaevita.blogspot.it

narutoshippudenstorm.forumcommunity.net

semedisalute.wordpress.com

lucacoscioni.it menoepausa.wordpress.com pastoralespiritualita.it

agoravox.it cattoliciromani.com losai.eu

liberoquotidiano.it

today.it

tempi.it

donnaemadre.wordpress.com

pubblicogiornale.it

corriere.it

libernazione.it

27esimaora.corriere.it

libertaepersona.org

angelinet.com

zingarate.com

marisamoles.wordpress.com filiaecclesiae.wordpress.com

cadoinpiedi.it

giovani.it

bioetiche.blogspot.it

ilsecoloxix.it

unacasasullaroccia.wordpress.com pinkblog.it

alfemminile.com iljester.it

womanjournal.it

LEGEND

64PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO animedreamland.forumcommunity.net N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

informarezzo.com

OFF TOPIC

salute24.ilsole24ore.com

girlpower.it

lecceprima.it

Confrontation dialogue

amicib.org

GRAPH 5b MOST CITING ACTORS ALLOWING CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE

genitoricrescono.com mammamsterdam.net

terradinessuno.wordpress.com

uaar.it espresso.repubblica.it

epidurale.blogspot.it

veritaevita.blogspot.it

narutoshippudenstorm.forumcommunity.net

semedisalute.wordpress.com

lucacoscioni.it menoepausa.wordpress.com pastoralespiritualita.it

agoravox.it cattoliciromani.com losai.eu

liberoquotidiano.it

ang today.it

tempi.it

lecceprima.it

donnaemadre.wordpress.com

filiaecclesiae.wordpress.com

pubblicogiornale.it

corriere.it

libernazione.it

27esimaora.corriere.it

libertaepersona.org

angelinet.com

zingarate.com

marisamoles.wordpress.com

cadoinpiedi.it

giovani.it

bioetiche.blogspot.it

ilsecoloxix.it

unacasasullaroccia.wordpress.com pinkblog.it

alfemminile.com iljester.it

salute24.ilsole24ore.com

girlpower.it

womanjournal.it

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animedreamland.forumcommunity.net

informarezzo.com

Confrontation dialogue

5.4 COMMENTS CATEGORIZATION

We have then considered the 63 pages (whole urls) offering the possibility to post comments, excluding all those having the possibility to comment only through social networks or being without comments.

After that, we have read the 2212 comments present on these web sites and classified their orientation according to the following criteria.

Comments has been classified as pro life if they connote abortion as murder in any case, therefore unacceptable.

Whereas if expressing the opinion that it is possible to turn to abortion in case of rape or of mother’s serious illness they have been classified as neutral/pro life orientation.

Classification of all the comments without a specific opinion or just showing official data has been defined neutral.

Some comments affirm instaed that abortion is a choice indeed, but women should not abuse it; these have been named neutral/pro life.

Pro choice group of comments has been built by grouping all those expressing the idea that women have the full right to choose what is the best for them.

In the end, insults, contraception arguments, animal abortion topics, data relating to foreign countries and not mentionin Italy, filled off topic category.

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Confrontation dialogue

PROLIFE EXAMPLE “An embryo will become a fetus, a fetus a baby and a baby a person. I am for human rights. The first one is the right to LIVE. Nobody can deny it.

Abortion is not a right.”

PROCHOICE EXAMPLE “Nobody can deny the right to choose one’s future, but sometimes this option is too easily faced.”

NEUTRAL/PROLIFE EXAMPLE “If you are grown-up enough to have sex, you have to behave in a grown-up manner also towards its consequences. Different matter are malformed fetes, pregnancies as a consequence of violence and other categories of conception at risk or somehow compromised.”

NEUTRAL/PROCHOICE EXAMPLE “Women are free to decide about their lives, women are living and complete human beings and therefore more important than a mass of cells.

Every woman must have the possibility to make her own choice.”

NEUTRAL EXAMPLE “The only Italian region close to the European data and clearly outstanding the national average is Sardinia, with the lowest rate of abortions (data referring to 2007)”

OFF TOPIC EXAMPLE “Francesco G. could you tell me your profession and work place? So that I can avoid you.”

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Confrontation dialogue

5.5 LINKS AND COMMENTS CHARACTERISTICS

5.5.1 LINKS ORIENTATION IN RELATION TO COMMENTS

At this point, considering the corpus of the 395 pages we have decided to relate their orientation, macro category, site typology to the possibility to comment and to the main orientation of the comments present on the page.

The first part of the graphic relates connections among the previously studied web characteristics, while the right part shows the possibility of posting comments and classifies the links accordingly to the dominant orientation of the comments.

This in order to better understand whether there was a relation between: - site orientation and site openness to confrontation through comments, - site orientation and comments orientation.

It is possible to notice that only 10% of the links give the possibility to post comments and that only a very low percentage of this possibility is not used. The clear majority of the pro life links offering the possibility of adding comments has received pro life oriented comments. A similar trend is observable in the neutral/pro life links, only the 10% of which has a mere pro life majority.

On the other hand, a reversal trend occurs in the neutral links, 20% of which offers the possibility to post a comment, and whose comment orientation tendency ramifies in all the possible directions, although mainly extreme oriented. This is also true for the neutral/pro choice links which, however, clearly shift the dominant comment orientation towards the pro choice orientation.

Finally, only 10% of the pro choice links is open to confrontation through comments, and here the majority of the comments is pro choice.

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In conclusion, the neutral or neutral/pro choice oriented sites are more open to this confrontation dialogue. The prevalent orientation of the comments reflects that of the link, except for the neutral sites whose comments are divided into the two opposite sides, though with a pro choice majority.

Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5c PRO LIFE LINKS COMMENT ORIENTATIONS TENDENCIES TENDENCIES

MACROAREA TENDENCIES

TENDENCIES TYPE OF SITE

COMMENTS TENDENCIES

RELIGION PRO LIFE

NEUTRO PRO LIFE

INFORMATIVE WEBSITE

COMMENTS NOT PROVIDED

HEALTH

BLOG

NEUTRO

NEWS HOMEPAGES ASSOCIATION WEBSITE CULTURE

NEUTRO PRO CHOICE

BIOETHICS

PORTAL

COMMENTS: NO

FEMININE

PRO LIFE

FORUM

PRO CHOICE

SOCIAL

COMMENTS: YES

N / PRO LIFE

NEUTRAL

INSTITUTIONAL WEBSITE

N / PRO CHOICE

DATABASE JURIDICAL

FEMINIST

PRO CHOICE

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Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5d NEUTRAL LINKS COMMENT ORIENTATIONS TENDENCIES TENDENCIES

MACROAREA TENDENCIES

TENDENCIES TYPE OF SITE

COMMENTS TENDENCIES

RELIGION PRO LIFE

NEUTRO PRO LIFE

INFORMATIVE WEBSITE

COMMENTS NOT PROVIDED

HEALTH

BLOG

NEUTRO

NEWS HOMEPAGES ASSOCIATION WEBSITE CULTURE

NEUTRO PRO CHOICE

BIOETHICS

PORTAL

COMMENTS: NO

FEMININE

PRO LIFE

FORUM

PRO CHOICE

SOCIAL

COMMENTS: YES

N / PRO LIFE

NEUTRAL

INSTITUTIONAL WEBSITE

N / PRO CHOICE

DATABASE JURIDICAL

70

FEMINIST

PRO CHOICE

Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5e PRO CHOICE LINKS COMMENT ORIENTATIONS TENDENCIES TENDENCIES

MACROAREA TENDENCIES

TENDENCIES TYPE OF SITE

COMMENTS TENDENCIES

RELIGION PRO LIFE

NEUTRO PRO LIFE

INFORMATIVE WEBSITE

COMMENTS NOT PROVIDED

HEALTH

BLOG

NEUTRO

NEWS HOMEPAGES ASSOCIATION WEBSITE CULTURE

NEUTRO PRO CHOICE

BIOETHICS

PORTAL

COMMENTS: NO

FEMININE

PRO LIFE

FORUM

PRO CHOICE

SOCIAL

COMMENTS: YES

N / PRO LIFE

NEUTRAL

INSTITUTIONAL WEBSITE

N / PRO CHOICE

DATABASE JURIDICAL

FEMINIST

PRO CHOICE

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Confrontation dialogue

5.5.2 COMMENTS ORIENTATION IN RELATION TO LINKS

In order to give a more detailed analysis of the development of the comment tendencies in relation to the links they are published in, we focused only on the 63 links that allow commenting, and studied the existing relationship between their orientation and the 2212 comments previously categorized according to their pertinence and orientation.

From this analysis it is clear, above all, that the neutral links are more open to confrontation since they offer more possibilities to post comments, followed in descending order by pro choice sites, neutral/pro choice, pro life and neutral/pro life ones.

Comparing the development of the comments in each link category, it is therefore possible to notice that there is a regular orientation tendency of the comments to decrease as they move away from the links that share their own orientation (e.g. pro life comments are at their peak in pro life links and their minimum in pro choice ones).

PRO LIFE LINKS - COMMENTS

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43

216

It is also possible to notice that there are more off topics in the pro choice links, probably due to fact that this orientation tends to support its thesis with themes going off the specific point, like birth control and sexual education.

Moreover, the visualization points out that in the links classified as “extreme� tend not to dialogue but to comment according to their own orientation, while in the neutral, neutral/pro life, neutral/pro choice oriented web sites there are more comments with a different orientation from the sites hosting them.

NEUTRAL/ PRO LIFE LINKS - COMMENTS

45

11 171

32

Confrontation dialogue

GRAPH 5f COMMENTS DISTRIBUTION

BY LINK ORIENTATION

NEUTRAL LINKS - COMMENTS

PRO LIFE

1115

N/PRO LIFE

COMMENTS: YES

NEUTRAL 474

N/PRO CHOICE

PRO CHOICE

641

Links with comments by link orientation

NEUTRAL LINKS - COMMENTS

NEUTRAL/PRO CHOICE LINKS - COMMENTS

PRO CHOICE LINKS - COMMENTS

334

1115

553

120

474

245

641

214

308

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Confrontation dialogue

5.6 SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF THE COMMENTS

We have decided to proceed with a semantic analysis of each group of comments of the same orientation, in order to investigate how the different orientations support their position inside this confrontation dialogue.

We have then grouped all the comments with the same orientation, we have uploaded them and using Alchemy API we have obtained the relevance of the words used by every group.

Among them we have selected the first 50 words for relevance in each orientation, thus extracting a set of 250 words with a relevance higher than 0.6.

In order to analyze them in details, we have classified these words according to the semantic groups we set as follows: - subjects: woman, couple, fetus, antiabortionist, etc., - motivations: suffering fetus, great difficulties, - issues: back-street abortion, abortions per year, - actions: killing a baby, legitimate choice, etc., - mentioned entities: National Health Care, Walter Veltroni, etc, - places: family counseling, private health facilities, - tools: harmless local anaesthetic, Italian Law N° 194.

Each of the 50 words has been placed inside one of these groups after a re-search and a re-reading of the comment or comments in which it appeared, so as to verify the aim and the intent it was used for.

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That is why some words can be found in different semantic groups; this is particularly evident in the semantic groups “motivations” and “issues”, as the same word changes the semantic group depending on whether used by pro life or pro choice orientations.

Undesired pregnancy for instance, is used by pro choice supporters as a reason for abortion, while it is used by pro life ones as troublesome, being the motive for a terrible deed, as shown by the following quotations: - pro life supporter: “the fact it is an undesired pregnancy doesn’t remove the fact it is killing a human being”, - pro choice: “every contraceptive has a minimal/ slight failure margin and a person can’t pay with an undesired pregnancy the human mistake of a day”.

Carrying on this analysis we have then particularly taken into account the words used by more orientations, being indicative of shared themes.

LEGEND PRO LIFE

N/ PRO LIFE

NEUTRO

N/ PRO CHOICE PRO CHOICE

OFF TOPIC

8 12

10

IV

AT

IO

N

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15

OT M

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13

16

7 7

2

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ACT I O N S

12

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1

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te tis or ni ro ra ab ti lli elt ra an oce er V Fer o B alt ano ond a i W iuli il m ivat iliar G tto pr fam tu nica ori ei cli nsult urop co esi e a pa ione lian na reg ta ita etag lici r tut an B pubb te o Gr edali priva ca rgic osp tture pubbli chiru u str ttura corso c stru to so blico n b u ro p li p ta ore riva li libera sett ura p tt ltura locale stru nti cu ie tesia amb a anes cu inno italiana e ria legg perato tari sala o socio-sani i serviz o 194 articol liana n. legge ita talgica an terapia iale leg ge soc anensi Patti Later to legge sull'abor esame dna isterosuzione codice penale bambino bimbo abortito figlio figlio Down donna figlio scon osciuto donna inc inta coppie embrio ne um ano figlio in figlio desiderato sano pote nz pove iale figlio ra sv entu figli o rata vitti bam diverso ma b med ino na sc mad ico vero ituro figli re mig ser adole liore ial s c enti kill me e d rag ici a r n em azza tiabo m pe brion era rtisti v co rsona e fru iglio sa ad ppie inaf tto fet olesc pron fidab t en ile ra i ti e as gazz ta pira e n m te nte so edi do ma do li o ci o nne mm nn bie bie co a tto tto lpe a vo ri ri li

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te i ia n z er t de i ap vi l i e na on pe o zi nti o ca t ism ifi me or rot od di ab 'e m ce asi o l neo o n a i pr als viva ont qu ssi sp i se orto futil tici a ab use mi e ni tiv ca oble lazio emo o pr nipo rica estin ma te ca land si oc for ligio ort ab gione mi re s reli grali a e edic int ri o am err tenz ilitare is ass izio m v o c ser uo mati t mu o trau ica l rt abo e catto ma i le le al mens mor ile prob fisso b terri amento suale nt ne ses appu zazio a edu e l buon a mora natur liano vizio ita turale na aborto ino e un bamb uccider isione grave dec le scelta diffici abile gesto irrespons estrazione dentaria omicidio rivolgersi all'idraulico scelta scelta difficile

0,7

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ri i to at et m bi e or i o alf tist ardi orm m en d inf o ti fe rum ci c ato tti st liti mer rro ori po glo i co iett rto ag litic i ob mo po edic no bino m o sa bam fet ro ic m dico i me nna ivil ti c do o ien ri m uo bbed ietto o b dis ici o logico d me re bio ano pad re um e gen ra o 'ope san a n ori d ri don prestat ietto i mer ologi ob ec n ile gi disab figlio o figlio ic ipotet donna povera abortista o medic madre inta donna inc rsona un'altra pe ca donna logi donna fortunata essere umano cellule insignificanti persona umana l'embrione medico donna personale sanitario altre persone propria coscie nza buon senso casi estrem i momen to preci so feto so ffre vita serio pe mam ricolo ma pe seri pr rché salut oblemi e stes fisica sa vite person u a grav mane pro i diffic p o irri ria de ltà p cas etibile ontolo i no partic corr gia nè e do di s fac olari c i o l co r so e s viv cien indi vid za arg o ual e vio ome bu lenz ntaz co on a se ion m ntra sens ssua i vali de le re oral cce o s ub qu spo e n zio ita sa als nsa è im ne d lu ias bi te li mo 'em i fis mo tà m rale erg en ic tiv o a za o rale

subire le decisioni scelta d’interr uzione pagare scelta est rema scelta leg itt scelta co ima nsapevo scelta le corag gi scelta osa se scelta mplice scelt individual a int ellige e l ib er nte a terr scelta ib scelt ile riso luzi one scelt a forza ta For a giust m Reg igon a i pro ina A p Po getto ostolo n r um l'as tific stoq i Co sisten o Ate neo za C ngr s e h a leg iesa sso I nita r M islat catto ntern ia se inist ori ir lica azio na Ti gnal ero lan le F zia ano Giu des i e n Se rra a A var stiz M r vi rase nto i pr ia C ini zio r viz nuc ocur hi ste Sa ato io ci a r ri a L ro S nita san all an rio itar it à N i i az o io na le

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aborti clandestin i rapporto sess uale terrorismo psic olo gico panni pu liti crisi mi stiche gravid anza in desider grande ata ip oc ris impr ia ov perc viso incide en nte metod tuale im portan grav i antico te n id meto anza in cezionali d l'ab do con esiderat o t l'ab rto ch raccett a irurg ivo o co rto ic m rr o e con etta e dico d pur sidera ucazio ne pu o me zione sess n t ual abo to di odo e sog rti l vista ' l'im lia m anno psich ico pa inim a b t ca orti to p a s te ttoli clan icolo d e ca rmin ca stin gico co ttiv e p i ab ntr a fe ro a b pi ort acc de or to 12 llol o c etti 0m a a hir vi ila bo urg orm ab rtiv ico on a li or a R ti U 48 6

5

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12

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GRAPH5 5g SEMANTIC GROUPS USAGE

BY ORIENTATION

4 1

2

2

3

23

2

4

TOO L S

Confrontation dialogue

Confrontation dialogue

5.6.1 ORIENTATIONS AND SEMANTIC GROUPS

Consequently we have devised a visualization which connected the comment orientation to the used semantic group.

The dimension of the portions corresponding to the semantic groups points out that the discussion about abortion develops particularly though words referable to “subjects”, “motivations” and “issues”.

From the presence of colours inside every portion of the visualization emerges the semantic group that a certain orientation preferentially uses to support their thesis: - pro life supporters motivate and justify their thesis with “subjects”, emphasizing the role of human beings; - neutral pro life ones uses “motivations”, explaining the reasons why it is wrong to abort; - neutral and neutral/pro choice links generally discuss critical “issues” stressing the problems and referring to “places”; - pro choice ones convey their opinions using the category “actions” because they are concerned about the possibility choosing.

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Moreover, comparing in every semantic group the words used by different orientations, it is possible to notice that different orientations use different words to refer to the same content: their lexis choice reflects their judgment about that concept.

What is aborted is: PRO LIFE: a baby, a not yet born child, a potential child, a human embryo, a poor hapless victim NEUTRAL/PRO LIFE: a fetus NEUTRAL: a shapeless mass/agglomeration NEUTRAL/PRO CHOICE: hypothetic child PRO CHOICE: meaningless cells, embryo The woman who chooses can be considered as: PRO LIFE: a better mother NEUTRAL/PRO LIFE: a would-be-mother, lots of guilty women PRO CHOICE: poor woman Abortion means: PRO LIFE: killing a baby, a difficult choice, an irresponsible deed, a tooth extraction, murder, calling the plumber NEUTRAL/PRO LIFE: a difficult choice NEUTRAL/PRO CHOICE: decisions undergoing, pay, extreme choice, a legitimate choice.

PRO CHOICE: courageous choice, individual choice, intelligent choice, terrible solution, forced choice.

From that it is possible to deduce the reasons supporting the extreme positions: pro life consider the fetus a victim since using a set of words stressing their empathy with it; at the same time they define the woman as a mother guilty of an irresponsible deed: the deliberate murder of her child.

Viceversa, pro choice define the woman as a victim, abortion as a choice and what is aborted as an embryo or a mass of meaningless cells.

Confrontation dialogue

5.6.2 SHARED WORDS

GRAPH 5h SHARED WORDS

BY ORIENTATION

In the visualization we have distinguished the words that are used by more than one orientation in order to verify whether it was expression of the fact that different orientations shared the same thesis or whether they used the same words with different connotations.

UNDESIRED PREGNANCY is used by all the orientations with different connotations (a reason for pro choice; a problem for pro life) but expressing the same opinion: to be avoided. They obviously have different opinions about the methods to avoid it, bringing themes like abstinence and contraception into the discussion).

On the contrary, WOMAN is a word used by different orientations to convey different opinions: pro life and neutral/pro life sides generally take into very low consideration the woman’s reasons and consider her sa shallow egoist who chooses to abort only in view of her career or just to rollick or because she doesn’t feel ready for it.

Neutrals mention the woman because according to the Italian law she is the only one legally entitled to choose.

The neutral/pro choice orientations underline that the choice (undeniable right of the woman, who is the one and only who can choose, while men can’t even imagine her situation) must be aware.

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Confrontation dialogue

The words pregnant woman, life, disable child and objector doctors used only by a certain combinations of some orientations: PREGNANT WOMAN (used by extreme positions, pro life and pro choice): the opinion shared by both is that being pregnant does not mean being a mother.

Pro life supporters describe pregnant women as afraid and ignorant to be blamed (“it is not her fault”) or as guilty of their children’s murder.

For pro choice side the choice is up to pregnant women who can’t be judged by anyone since their decision is highly personal, and due to rational, emotional or physical reasons.

LIFE (used by pro life and neutral/pro life): is the pro life side’s main reason not to abort: abortion is considered a murder and therefore condemned, because it deprives the fetus of the possibility to live.

DISABLED CHILD (used by pro choice and neutral/pro choice): it is used by pro choice supporters as a reason why aborting and by neutral/pro choice as a subject.

In any case, the fact that one’s own child will be disabled is one of the reasons that mostly drive to support the freedom of choice.

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OBJECTOR DOCTORS (used by neutral, neutral/ pro life, neutral/pro choice) categorized within subjects semantic group but having high relevance only for the neutral orientations.

Neutral/pro life praise them, neutral/pro choice condemn them, neutrals make hypothesis about the increasing number of objectors.

In conclusion such analysis highlights the following points: - within some semantic groups there are several words used in common by different orientations: “subjects” and “motivations” have a higher density of words used by more orientations, while “tools” and “mentions” have none; - some words are used by combinations of more or less various orientations: “undesired pregnancy” is used by all of them, “back-street abortion” only by two; - which orientations share only one word: “life” is shared by pro life and neutral/pro life; “objectors” only by neutral/pro life, neutral and neutral/pro choice; “pregnant woman” by pro life and pro choice.

Moreover, it is possible to notice that some orientations share whole sets of words: “free choice” and “absolute freedom” are used by the same orientations.

Eventually, it is clear that some words have been used with different connotations by which orientation: “undesired pregnancy” is an “issue” for pro life and a “motivation” for pro choice ones.

Confrontation dialogue

5.7 CONCLUSION

The web sites offering greater possibility to post comments are the neutral and neutral/pro choice ones, with a percentage around 20%.

Extreme orientations are not so willing to dialogue because they tend to comment mainly on sites with their same orientation, while there is a wider openness to confrontation in neutral, neutral/pro life and neutral/pro choice links.

Neutral web sites can be considered more open to confrontation also because they offer greater possibilities to comment compared to the links of other orientations.

Within the comments supporting one’s own thesis they tend to refer to: subjects, motivations and issues, actions. They only marginally refer to personalities, tools and places.

Moreover, the orientations express themselves through preferential semantic groups to support their positions: pro life supporters emphasize the subjects, neutral/pro life the motivations, neutral and neutral/pro choice the issues and pro/choice the actions.

Therefore, an orientation own semantic group represents also the aspects that particular orientation is more susceptible to, aspects which, if mentioned, would likely stir interest and draw attention within the orientation itself (e.g. if I want to establish a relationship with the pro life side, I would better set up a dialogue in a neutral pro life link and use the semantic group of “subjects� to convey my opinions).

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Confrontation dialogue

5.8 CONFRONTATION DIALOGUE CORPUS

27esimaora.corriere.it/articolo/guardatela-sichiama-nella-cordeliala-mia-bimba-down-sonopazza-di-lei/ animedreamland.forumcommunity. net/?t=52166101 blog.chatta.it/gimmihammer/post/unadiscussione-sull-aborto.aspx forum.alfemminile.com/forum/f114/__f23711_f114Quali-sono-gli-effetti-pricologici-dell-ivg.html forum.alfemminile.com/forum/matern1/__ f334690_matern1-Dopo-la-discussione-di-questamattina-sull-aborto.html it.answers.yahoo.com/question/ index?qid=20080215035323AAPrK7v it.answers.yahoo.com/question/ index?qid=20080326114104AA0aeWQ it.answers.yahoo.com/question/ index?qid=20080608083844AAlDFe6 it.answers.yahoo.com/question/ index?qid=20120827004527AA185PD pubblicogiornale.it/attualita/aborto-lavoroprecarieta-194/ terradinessuno.wordpress.com/diritto-alla-vitapagine-di-psicologia-e-diritti-umani/diritto-allavita-e-interruzione-della-gravidanza-un-progetto/ agoravox.it/Il-problema-dell-aborto-Tra.html alfemminile.com/donne-vita-privata-famigliacoppia/aborto-volontario-in-italia-legge-194d39322c483330.html corriere.it/cronache/10_giugno_09/porqueddu80

bocelli-youtube_1ebfaf12-7389-11df-8fbb00144f02aabe.shtml corriere.it/salute/12_ottobre_09/abortoginecologi-obiettori_688b7af8-1216-11e2-919a606647d2c25a.shtml forumetici.it/viewtopic. php?f=31&t=6798&start=210 girlpower.it/mondo/storie_di_donne/aborto_ napoli_polizia_194.php ilsecoloxix.it/p/mondo/2012/08/20/APNKb7EDpolemica_prenatale_sindrome.shtml informarezzo.com/permalink/7932.html laleggepertutti.it/13196_aborto-potrebbe-nonessere-piu-legale-in-italia liberoquotidiano.it/news/371182/Campagna-chocinvita-le-polacche-ad-abortire-in-Gran-Bretagna. html liberoquotidiano.it/news/italia/1085698/Ecco-larticolo-di-Dreyfus--che-ha-fatto-condannareSallusti.html opsonline.it/psicologia-13149-interruzionevolontaria-della-gravidanza-nelle-adolescenti. html womanjournal.it/2012/03/23/interruzionevolontaria-di-gravidanza/ bioetiche.blogspot.it/2012/11/a-come-aborto.html espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/aborto-inospedale-non-si-puo/2169832 genitoricrescono.com/obiezione-di-coscienzadallaborto-alla-contraccezione/

libernazione.it/assassini/ marisamoles.wordpress.com/2012/05/18/ pordenone-troppi-obiettori-concorso-per-mediciabortisti/ menoepausa.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/hoabortito-e-sto-benissimo/ salute24.ilsole24ore.com/articles/14555-sindromedi-down-via-libera-in-germania-al-test-dellepolemiche semedisalute.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/ discussioni-sull-aborto-abortite/ cadoinpiedi.it/2012/08/22/un_test_prenatale_per_ la_sindrome_di_down_viola_i_diritti_umani.html lecceprima.it/politica/interruzione-gravidanza-dalecce-l-appello-il-buon-medico-non-obietta.html lucacoscioni.it/pillola_del_giorno_dopo zingarate.com/network/dublino/laborto-inirlanda-e-una-questione-da-terzo-mondo.html angelinet.com/forum/default.

Confrontation dialogue

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06

RESEARCH ANSWER

If seeking to dialogue with extreme sides, it would be better to address neutral/extremes since they appear more open to opposed ideas.

It would also be advisable to propose oneself using a lexis referable to the semantic group that is more acceptable by the orientation addressed.

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Research answer

6.1 AN UNBORN DISCUSSION

The answer to our research demand has been found by studying the actors’ approach to the controversy. In fact, analyzing the developing of three types of dialogue we were able to define whether the presence of this discussion on line is the expression of confrontation or it is just stance taking.

We concluded that in Wikipedia the presence of this discussion is expression of confrontation for registered users who negotiate the contents in order to reach an impartial and encyclopaedic vision. This constructive negotiation is successful and leads to new maturity and to improvement of the page, as well as to a more shared view of the issue, as shown by the decreasing density of changes in time.

On the contrary, sided oriented ip addresses (in particular pro life ones) are stance taking and instead of dialoguing they aim at modifying the gist of the page in favour of their beliefs.

By the study of the network of actors we observed that referential dialogue is actively used but only within two self-referential groups, pro life and neutral pro life ones, while neutrals tend to join neutral/pro choice and pro choice positions.

In fact, the typical sites using referentiality are strongly oriented, and link to other strongly oriented ones to support their ideas by quoting more relevant actors.

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Because of this there are no sites with high number of both inlinks and outlinks shows that opinion leaders are so authoritative that they don’t need to support their thesis by mentioning others’ positions, which is a typical feature of blogs. Blogs are indeed the most present typology of site and are usually used to support extreme positions: feminine and feminist blogs clearly counterpoint religious ones, expressing the furthest orientations.

That once again confirms the fact that referential dialogue arouses only the relation internal to each side which, on the other hand, tends to close and to develop a one-way dialogue instead of true confrontation.

The truly exchange dialogue between orientations is performed only by those actors who allow comments within their page. These actors, willing to face any point of view including critics, are generally either prominent opinion leaders (often informative sites) or minor and unrelated sites (often personal and thematic web sites).

In particular, the web sites offering greater possibility to post comments are the neutral and neutral/pro choice ones, with a percentage around 20%, followed in descending order by pro choice sites, pro life and neutral/pro life ones.

Although this dialogue is pointer of openness, the tendency of same-orientation-referentiality is still present, as shown by the fact that the highest percentage of comments posted in a certain extremed oriented site share the same extreme position. A wider openness towards confrontation with opposite sides can be found in neutral, neutral/pro life and neutral/pro choice links.

Within this type of dialogue, each orientation expresses itself emphasizing a semantic group of words, comparing which it is possible to deduce: the reasons supporting the extreme positions, which orientations share which words, which shared words have been used with different connotations and by who.

Research answer

6.2 GUIDELINES FOR DIALOGUE BUILDING

This analysis brought out indications and clues about how to reach and be listened by the various orientations.

The visualization GRAPH 4g, crossing macroareas, type of sites and orientations, is extremely effective in identifying the most suitable platform in order to communicate with and address a particular side, and in suggesting through which macro-area to orientate the subjects and the arguments.

The graph GRAPH 5f shows instead the actors who are more open to every position, among which the neutral links appear far more open offering wider possibilities to post comments, followed in descending order by pro choice sites, neutral/pro choice, pro life and neutral/pro life ones.

In conclusion, if seeking to dialogue with extreme sides, though of different opinion, it would be better to address neutral/extremes since they appear more open to opposed ideas. It would also be advisable to propose oneself using a lexis referable to the semantic group that is more acceptable by the orientation addressed: that is emphasizing the subjects with pro life supporters, motivations with neutral/pro life, issues with neutral and neutral/pro choice and actions talking

with pro/choice ones. The reason is that each orientation’s own semantic group represents also the aspects that it is more susceptible to, aspects which, if mentioned, would likely stir interest and draw attention.

Moreover, it is useful to be particularly careful about the tags to use mentioning the main topic: scientific language reaches a sub-partis target; vice versa using a colloquial register it is likely to attract who is interested in expressing a personal point of view.

Finally, in order to reach a wider target of recipients it is preferable to use the combination “aborto + diritto di vita” to reach pro life sides and “Interruzione volontaria di gravidanza + discussione” to dialoge with neutral/pro choice ones, as these are the most common connotations of the topic in Italy.

If aiming at talking exclusively with neutral oriented sides (neutral, neutral/pro life or neutral/ pro choice) it is advisable to type both the mentioned combinations.

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