Political and personality predispositions and topical contexts matter: Effects of uncivil comments on science news engagement intentions

Abstract

Building on existing theoretical frameworks for the study of incivility, interactivity, and negativity bias, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on the impact of incivility in online comments. Specifically, it tests incivility’s impact on news engagement intentions; investigates political and personality predispositions’ roles as perceptual filters; and extends this scholarship to the context of multiple scientific news topics. It found that, when dealing with news about two of the more politically divisive technologies—fracking and synthetic biology—ideology moderated the effects of incivility, with uncivil comments encouraging engagement among conservatives but not among liberals. However, in the less politically divisive context of nanotechnology, self-monitoring played a significant role in moderating incivility’s effects: with high self-monitors being more motivated, and low self-monitors less motivated, to share nanotech news after exposure to uncivil comments. These results imply that individual predispositions and topic-specific factors both underlie the impact of incivility on news engagement intentions.

Generating Science Buzz: An Examination of Multidimensional Engagement With Humorous Scientific Messages on Twitter and Instagram

“…Scholarly conceptualizations of user engagement with online messages have had various foci. Some revolve around information experience, highlighting information-gathering and exchange behaviors (e.g., Su et al, 2020), while others examine users' interactive experiences with actionable features of social media (e.g., Ksiazek et al, 2016;Yeo et al, 2020). Such engagement behaviors can be classified as effective evaluation, viral reach, and message deliberation (see Alhabash & McAlister, 2015).…”

Like, Comment, and Share on TikTok: Exploring the Effect of Sentiment and Second-Person View on the User Engagement with TikTok News Videos

“…Based on the literature, what other TikTok users posted in the comment section might influence one’s decision to engage with the original post. Evidence has shown that others’ emotional reactions to the news (Larsson, 2018) and uncivil comments (Su et al, 2021) will affect one’s news engagement behavior (Larsson, 2018). Finally, future studies can examine if the news consumption pattern on TikTok is ideologically biased or diverse.…”

Seeing red: Reading uncivil news comments guided by personality characteristics

“…At the same time, political affiliation and news source had an effect on attitudes toward uncivil comments insomuch as incivility affectively depolarizes partisans when it comes from an in-party source (Druckman et al, 2019). Similarly, when dealing with news about two politically divisive topics, ideology moderated the effects of incivility, with uncivil comments encouraging engagement among conservatives but not among liberals (Su et al, 2021).…”