Controversy

Christian Baden, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
c.baden@mail.huji.ac.il

Controversy describes a discursive situation wherein multiple participants express divergent opinions toward a common object, resulting in sustained disagreement. At its core, controversy focuses on which out of multiple incompatible views can be regarded as valid.

Classically, controversies focus on divergent evaluations of a common object, wherein positive and negative stances are expressed by different participants. Controversies can also revolve around divergent interpretations, or discrepant priorities for addressing a common issue. Controversies can involve direct disagreement (i.e., one opinion affirms what another denies), or divergent frames applied to the same object (i.e., foregrounding different aspects, which point toward contrasting conclusions). Controversies may be limited to binary disagreement, or involve a multiplicity of incompatible stances. For controversy to exist, it is usually sufficient that competing opinions are constructed as incompatible, even if they may not be formally irreconcilable. In borderline cases, one side constructs a controversy by opposing a position that is not actually advocated by anyone, reinterpreting others’ statements as if these presented an opposing view.

Controversy requires some degree of discursive interaction within a common arena, which may be indirect: Participants may dialogically address one another (e.g., face-to-face, tagged/threaded replies on digital media) or merely react to other participants’ prior statements or broader positions (e.g., expressing dissenting views in the same public, with or without explicit reference to contested claims), without need for temporal synchronisation or co-presence.

Controversy is enacted before an audience, enabling third parties to observe and potentially designate the controversy as such. Moreover, controversy implies that disagreement persists and is neither resolved nor otherwise settled (e.g., via compromise, or by excluding dissenters from the debate). Controversy ends when a resolution is found (by compromise, one side winning), or when participants disengage, ceding their efforts to convert or defeat dissenters (e.g., agreeing to disagree, ceasing to acknowledge disagreement).

Keywords: disagreement, public discourse, issues

References:
Alharbi, A. (2021). Controversy and discourse: The arts of transforming negativity through transitivity. SAGE Open, 11(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211066896
Cramer, P. A. (2011). Controversy as news discourse. Springer.