Flashback Forums is a Swedish discussion forum that have existed on the internet in different versions since 1996. Since after the millenium it has got a reputation being very active discussing contemporary criminal cases. The discussions are often harsh and vibrant, not minding any of Swedens laws regarding slandering or regulation of press, the servers being located to North America. Lawless or not – the forums have been involved in several criminal cases, supplying information that had not been found by the Police. Because of these cases Flashback Forums has gained a reputation among journalists, police and the public. It is now heavily used as a source of information by different agents in society. This makes it a powerful actor and information provider in Swedish society.
I am interested in how consensus regarding what is considered as a fact are treaten in the Flashback Contemporary Crimes-subforum (Underforumet ”Aktuella brott”). In order to have a flow of discussion, the participants need to have a common ground, some traits of an evidence being used to decide what is a proven fact and what is not. These traits should be possible to identify when analyzing the discussions. To get an understanding of this I will follow and analyze two different forum threads regarding two contemporary murders. What is considered a trusted source and what signifies that a source is seen as controversial? How is consensus built by those forum members participating in the discussion? I will use a process-based method in analyzing the threads, considering them as a process with a natural beginning (the criminal event) and a natural end (the solving of the crime). In this process a number of consensus-building moments will appear in the discussion. These will be in focus of my investigation and analyzed with methods related to hermeneutical and argument analyzing research. The result will be a number of rules related to consensus-building regarding facts in these particular forums.