1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 11 1.1 Knowledge Transfer via the World Wide Web ......................................... 11 1.2 Cultural Turn in Linguistics ....................................................................... 12 1.3 Research Question ....................................................................................... 12 2. From Text to Text Linguistics .................................................................. 17 3. Genre .................................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Genres as Analytical Categories ................................................................. 21 3.2 The Multiple Layers of Genre ..................................................................... 24 3.3 Contrastive Textology ................................................................................. 24 3.4 Genre Change ............................................................................................... 33 3.5 Intertextuality ............................................................................................... 37 3.6 Genre and Culture ....................................................................................... 39 4. Previous Research ......................................................................................... 43 4.1 Letters to the Editor ..................................................................................... 43 4.2 Readers’ Comments ..................................................................................... 45 4.3 Facebook Comments ................................................................................... 49 4.4 Tweets ............................................................................................................ 52 4.5 Disqus & Livefyre ........................................................................................ 55 5. Conversation Analysis ................................................................................ 59 5.1 Comparing Conversational Patterns ......................................................... 61 5.2 Topic Changes .............................................................................................. 645.3 Topic Continuation .................................................................................. 66 5.4 Conflictual vs. Non-Conflictual Conversations ................................... 67 6. Corpus ............................................................................................................ 71 7. Diachronic Development of Letters to the Editor ...................... 77 7.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 77 7.2 Discover ..................................................................................................... 80 7.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................... 87 7.4 GEO ........................................................................................................... 93 8. Diachronic Development of Online Comments ......................... 99 8.1 National Geographic ................................................................................ 99 8.2 Discover ................................................................................................... 107 8.3 Sciences et Avenir .................................................................................. 112 8.4 GEO ......................................................................................................... 121 9. Multiple Commenters ........................................................................... 127 9.1 Commenters in Multiple Threads ........................................................ 127 9.2 Commenters on More Than One Platform ........................................ 131 9.3 Long-Term Commenters ...................................................................... 134 10. Layout Comparison ............................................................................... 139 11. Situation ...................................................................................................... 149 12. Topic Management ................................................................................. 155 12.1 Examples of Topic Maintenance ........................................................ 155 12.2 Examples of Topic Change ................................................................. 16212.3 Topic Changes within Conversations ................................................. 167 12.4 Interim Summary: Topic Maintenance and Topic Changes ............ 176 12.5 Quantitative Analysis of Topical Actions ........................................... 177 13. Qualitative Analysis ................................................................................ 181 13.1 Conflict Conversations ......................................................................... 181 13.2 Complete Support Conversations ....................................................... 198 13.3 Sharing with Friends ............................................................................. 208 13.4 The Use of Links .................................................................................... 210 13.5 The Use of Emoticons ........................................................................... 217 13.6 Hashtags ................................................................................................. 224 13.7 Quote Article ......................................................................................... 226 14. Quantitative Analysis ............................................................................. 233 14.1 Language Comparison .......................................................................... 233 14.2 Platform Comparison ........................................................................... 235 14.3 Comparison of Overall Magazine Websites ...................................... 239 14.4 Discussion of Results ............................................................................ 243 15. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 247 Appendix .............................................................................................................. 251 List of Figures .................................................................................................... 257 List of Tables ....................................................................................................... 259 References ............................................................................................................ 261 Corpus ................................................................................................................... 279