Discussions in the comments section: Factors influencing participation and interactivity in online newspapers’ reader comments

Abstract

Posting comments on the news is one of the most popular forms of user participation in online newspapers, and there is great potential for public discourse that is associated with this form of user communication. However, this potential arises only when several users participate in commenting and when their communication becomes interactive. Based on an adaption of Galtung and Ruge's theory of newsworthiness, we hypothesized that a news article's news factors affect both participation levels and interactivity in a news item's comments section. The data from an online content analysis of political news are consistent with the hypotheses. This article explores the ways in which news factors affect participation levels and interactivity, and it discusses the theoretical, normative, and practical implications of those findings.

Interactivity features of Online Newspapers: from a facsimile model to a multimedia model one. Interactivity in online journals.

“…It is possible on all the websites, except on O Globo (this media updated its website and now it is possible to comment directly into the news). This is consistent with Fondevila-Gascón, Beriain (2013) and Weber (2013) who stated that this is one of the most popular forms of user participation; Voting news items was the least developed indicator (<4.76%). It should be noticed that there are several ways for rating news, such as recommend buttons, "Likes" on Facebook or the times that a piece of news has been shared.…”

“…Concerning communicative interactivity, more than half of newspapers (57.14%) facilitated a way to contact the editorial staff, as a kind of allowing users to share their opinions via anonymous online comments (Nielsen 2014). However, communication with journalists is an under-exploited possibility (23.81%); by providing "commentary and debate spaces, online newspapers create the opportunity for active communication, that is easy and accessible for ordinary users" (Weber 2013). It is possible on all the websites, except on O Globo (this media updated its website and now it is possible to comment directly into the news).…”

The Imagined Audience for and Perceived Quality of News Comments: Exploring the Perceptions of Commenters on News Sites and on Facebook

“…Because of the growing popularity of leaving and reading comments online, these spaces for public discourse have become an important topic for communication research. Scholars have examined news comment sections to understand the impact of interactivity and other content features (Weber, 2014;Ziegele, Breiner, & Quiring, 2014), the quality of news comments (Coe et al, 2014;Rowe, 2015aRowe, , 2015bSantana, 2014), motivations for commenting (Springer, Engelmann, & Pfaffinger, 2015;Stroud et al, 2016), personal characteristics of news commenters (Wu & Atkin, 2017), and the influence of news comments on users' evaluation of news articles and social issues (Anderson, Brossard, Scheufele, Xenos, & Ladwig, 2014;Prochazka et al, 2016) and their future commenting behaviors (Rösner & Krämer, 2016). In addition, from the perspective of journalists, there have been a number of studies of how reporters and editors react to and negotiate the value of news comments (e.g., Loke, 2012;Nielsen, 2014;Robinson, 2010).…”

User Experiences with Editorial Control in Online Newspaper Comment Fields

“…Domingo 2008;Hermida and Thurman 2008;Jönsson and Örnebring 2011;Martin 2015;Singer et al 2011). A relatively widespread consensus has nevertheless developed among editors and journalists that newspapers should enable user participation through comment fields (Domingo, Quandt, and Heinonen 2008;Ihlebaek and Krumsvik 2015;Weber 2014). For example, Reich (2011) argues that a likely explanation for this consensus is that online comment fields do not challenge the journalistic authority in the same way as other forms of audience participation-such as public or participatory journalism.…”