Appraising Uncivil Comments in Online Political Discussions: How Do Preceding Incivility and Senders’ Stance Affect the Processing of an Uncivil Comment?

Kluck, Jan P.; Krämer, Nicole C.

doi:10.1177/00936502221113812

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 59 publications

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“…This incivility in social media evokes negative affective and behavioral reactions (Gervais, 2015). For instance, when individuals were exposed to uncivil comments on social media, they tended to experience hostile cognitions and emotions (Kluck & Krämer, 2023) and lead users to adopt social media filtering strategies like unfollowing or unfriending (Goyanes et al, 2021). Consequently, incivility in social media can hamper the free flow of information and opinion exchange on digital media platforms (Coe et al, 2014) and even lead to polarization (Suhay et al, 2018).…”

Section: Civility Of Political Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Farewells in the Digital Age

Lee,

Yang,

Zhong

2024

Journal of Media Psychology

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To examine how political differences on social media disrupt user relationships, we conduct two 2 (political disagreement vs. political agreement) × 2 (civil vs. uncivil discussion) between-subjects experiments, with adult and college student samples. The results show that political disagreement heightens feelings of uncomfortableness, which in turn increases the intention to engage in social media filtering actions. Discussion manner moderates the association between uncomfortableness and social media filtering intention in college students, but not in adults. Uncomfortableness positively predicts filtering intention with civil discussion, whereas uncivil discussion leads to higher social media filtering intention regardless of the level of uncomfortableness. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings, which have implications for the development of strategies aimed at mitigating the trends of political polarization.

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Section: Civility Of Political Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electronic Farewells in the Digital Age

Lee,

Yang,

Zhong

2024

Journal of Media Psychology

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When Social Media Attack: How Exposure to Political Attacks on Social Media Promotes Anger and Political Cynicism

Hasell,

Halversen,

Weeks

2024

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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Political cynicism is rising in many democracies throughout the world. At the same time, people increasingly use social media to access news and political information. However, much of the political content people see on these platforms is hostile, uncivil, and attacking. This study examines whether exposure to these political attacks on social media is associated with political cynicism and, if so, whether negative emotions like anger and anxiety play a mediating role in this process. Using data from a panel survey of American adults ( N = 1,800) collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, this study examines whether exposure to political attacks on social media is related to both emotions about the state of the country and political cynicism. Data indicate that people who were exposed to more political attacks on social media were more politically cynical. Further, perceived exposure to political attacks on social media was associated with more anger about the state of the United States, which was subsequently related to greater levels of political cynicism. The results provide evidence that exposure to political attacks on social media might contribute to both negative emotions about the country and political cynicism.

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The Impact of Comment Slant and Comment Tone on Digital Health Communication Among Polarized Publics: A Web-Based Survey Experiment

Lu,

2024

J Med Internet Res

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Background Public attitudes toward health issues are becoming increasingly polarized, as seen in social media comments, which vary from supportive to oppositional and frequently include uncivil language. The combined effects of comment slant and comment tone on health behavior among a polarized public need further examination. Objective This study aims to examine how social media users’ prior attitudes toward mask wearing and their exposure to a mask-wearing–promoting post, synchronized with polarized and hostile discussions, affect their compliance with mask wearing. Methods The study was a web-based survey experiment with participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 522 participants provided consent and completed the study. Participants were assigned to read a fictitious mask-wearing–promoting social media post with either civil anti–mask-wearing comments (130/522, 24.9%), civil pro–mask-wearing comments (129/522, 24.7%), uncivil anti–mask-wearing comments (131/522, 25.1%), or uncivil pro–mask-wearing comments (132/522, 25.3%). Following this, the participants were asked to complete self-assessed questionnaires. The PROCESS macro in SPSS (model 12; IBM Corp) was used to test the 3-way interaction effects between comment slant, comment tone, and prior attitudes on participants’ presumed influence from the post and their behavioral intention to comply with mask-wearing. Results Anti–mask-wearing comments led social media users to presume less influence about others’ acceptance of masks (B=1.49; P<.001; 95% CI 0.98-2.00) and resulted in decreased mask-wearing intention (B=0.07; P=.03; 95% CI 0.01-0.13). Comment tone with incivility also reduced compliance with mask-wearing (B=–0.44; P=.02; 95% CI –0.81 to –0.07). Furthermore, polarized attitudes had a direct impact (B=0.86; P<.001; 95% CI 0.45-1.26) and also interacted with both the slant and tone of comments, influencing mask-wearing intention. Conclusions Pro–mask-wearing comments enhanced presumed influence and compliance of mask-wearing, but incivility in the comments hindered this positive impact. Antimaskers showed increased compliance when they were unable to find civil support for their opinion in the social media environment. The findings suggest the need to correct and moderate uncivil language and misleading information in online comment sections while encouraging the posting of supportive and civil comments. In addition, information literacy programs are needed to prevent the public from being misled by polarized comments.

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Appraising Uncivil Comments in Online Political Discussions: How Do Preceding Incivility and Senders’ Stance Affect the Processing of an Uncivil Comment?

Cited by 4 publications

References 59 publications

Electronic Farewells in the Digital Age

Electronic Farewells in the Digital Age

When Social Media Attack: How Exposure to Political Attacks on Social Media Promotes Anger and Political Cynicism

The Impact of Comment Slant and Comment Tone on Digital Health Communication Among Polarized Publics: A Web-Based Survey Experiment

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