This data collection consist of saved webpages from an online discussion forum about bovine tuberculosis and the culling of badgers, showing the comments and replies that participants made. The discussions involved participants in four different simultaneous discussion groups over five days. On each day participants were given a new stimulus and question to respond to. There was little or no further intervention from the moderators. See guide for further information. Note that there are three other collections associated with this research(see Related Resources below for links): 852114: Doing TB Differently: Q Methods data 852115: Doing TB Differently: Stakeholder dialogue workshop 852116: Doing TB Differently: Interview transcriptsOur research will be guided by three research questions: (1) How does the character of the acute conflict (characterised, in this case, by controversial field culls of badgers combined with the deliberately narrow remit of an Independent Expert Panel) reveal key fracture points in the debate?; (2) What is the scope for reducing conflicts and overcoming fracture points through social science led forms of interventions? (3) Can a social science-led intervention translate into broader policy change? These questions will be addressed from several angles. We will collect field observations and develop and analyse an archive of film evidence recording interactions between and among pro-and anti- culling groups, cull contractors, companies, farmers and police officers as culling is being undertaken. A sample of people from each of these groups will be approached for in-depth interviews. Data will also be generated from social- and mass-media. An online deliberative forum will be used to understand the types of argumentation deployed on all sides of the debate. This will inform a Q-set (a set of key arguments used in the debate) that will be used to test the views of participants in deliberative forums before and after they participate in two deliberative events. These professionally facilitated deliberative forums will seek to negotiate a workable compromise for future TB policy. Q-methodology will allow us to assess the extent to which social science-led deliberative forums have been able to reduce key fracture points in the conflict. Finally, we will run focus groups with key policy makers assessing the utility of our approach for informing policy and the possibility of our findings shaping TB policy.

Participants submitted their comments to the online discussion forum via a tailor-made discussion interface. Each participants had their own login, user account and username assigned to them to preserve their anonymity. On each day of the forum, new stimulus material and a question was presented and discussions would start afresh. Participants were not able to go back and comment on previous days' discussions, but they could still view them.