INTRODUCTION Nolitics is a politically-oriented discussion forum in the NaijaPals online community website. The term 'Nolitics' is portmanteau word (or coinage) from 'Naija Politics'. 'Naija' (also written as 9ja) is a clipped version of 'Nigeria.' The forum generally maintains and promotes social discourse--where members post and receive comments on current social and political topics in Nigeria. Interactions are usually among young people who presumably have equal rights to share information and express their opinions. The forum is frequently updated to keep up with current events in society, especially political developments. Since Nolitics take the form of blogs, they share some general features that are common to the blog genre such as (1) asynchronicity (i.e. unlike synchronous computer-mediated discourse (CMD), they do not require that users be logged on at the same time in order to send and receive messages, rather messages are stored at the addressee's site until they are read (Herring, 2004), (2) one-way communication (3) message are archived until they are read, (4) web-based delivery and a tendency for messages to be text only (5) the display of blog entries in reverse chronological sequence, with a 'comment' option below each entry (Herring, 2007). Other features of blogs are (a) regular, dated-stamped entries (timeliness), (b) links to related blogs (blogrolling), (c) RSS or XML feed (ease of syndication), (d) passion (voice) (Gill, 2004). Blogging is often viewed as a new form of grassroots citizen journalism and a way to shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional party politics (Gillmor, 2003 cited in Ifukor, 2007). Nolitics reflects the tendency of an online forum to form opinions that may have significant implications on development policies that may have far reaching consequences on the life and future of a people (Ifukor, 2008). Going by Herring's and her colleagues's classification of blogs into three major types, i.e. filters, personal journals and k-logs (i.e. knowledge blogs), we can conclude that Nolitics combines features of 'filter' and 'k-logs.' Filter blogs are those that contain observations and evaluations of external, predominantly public events; personal journals (usually the most common) are used to report events in the blogger's life as well as the blogger's cognitive states; while k-logs focus on information and observations around an external topic, project or product (Herring et al 2007). In social interaction on Nolitics, members not only post comments, they also engage in some forms of social analyses and criticisms of Nigeria's socio-political system, thus participants lend their voices to topical issues that shape the society. Ifukor (2010) demonstrates that the dialectical relationship between discourse and social practice (Fairlough, 1989) and the process of political empowerment can be textually illustrated through the choice of vocabulary and sentiments expressed in blogs or discussion forums. Posts/journals on Nolitics are similar to blogs, which are frequently-updated and arranged in reverse chronological order (Herring, 2004). Social interactions are facilitated through user profiles containing biographical and contact information (Kouper, 2010). Users sign in to the hosting site with their private usernames and passwords.
