The chapter reconstructs a brief history of online commenting, based on the position comments have to journa­listic articles on news websites. Its key assumption is derived from paratext theory: Changes in spatial and temporal proximity of texts in the periphery of a main text—such as comments on the same web page as a journa­listic article as compared to posts in a separate forum—indicate contro­versies over relevance of partici­pants in a public discourse. Studying trans­forma­tions of online comments is thus considered an access point to studying histories of public spheres. With help of a software the authors and colleagues developed, changes in commenting sections are traced and visua­lized. These changes are detected in a data sample of archived web pages provided by the Internet Archive.

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Paßmann, Johannes, Martina Schories and Paul Heinicker (2024): “Do user comments belong to journalistic articles? A brief visual history of user interaction on selected German and American news websites 1996–2024”, in: Sophie Gebeil and Jean-Christophe Peyssard (Ed.): Exploring the Archived Web during a Highly Transformative Age. Florence, pp. 223–246. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0413-2.20.