Disinhibited abuse of othered communities by second-screening audiences

Abstract

Second-screening and live-tweeting alongside broadcast television generates new concerns with respect to online abuse. We present an investigation into the nature of Twitter-facilitated second-screening posts relating to Thelma's Gypsy Girls, one of a series of controversial documentary programmes portraying the Irish Traveller community that have recently been aired by the UK publicservice television broadcaster Channel 4. Sentiment analysis highlighted the general negativity of these posts whilst a detailed thematic inquiry revealed the often abusive and aggressive messages aimed directly at the community and individuals portrayed in the broadcast material. We discuss why users might be susceptible to exhibiting these behaviours, and the implications for the broadcast industry, and social TV designers and developers.

“Who is really British anyway?”: A thematic analysis of responses to online hate materials

“…Similar calls for symbolic punishment have also been observed in other online hate contexts (e.g. Angie et al, 2011;Coffey & Woolworth, 2004;Doughty et al, 2014;Erjavec & Kovačič, 2012). Some posters' attempts to counter Emma's apparent racism with further expressions of hatred (i.e.…”

“…Some posters' attempts to counter Emma's apparent racism with further expressions of hatred (i.e. Meeting hatred with hatred) seem to be in line with existing 'flaming' research (Coffey & Woolworth, 2004;Doughty et al, 2014, Lange, 2007Moor et al, 2010). In particular, there was some evidence of 'flaming' (i.e.…”

“…anti-social, abusive, negative, aggressive and hostile tweets -a phenomenon frequently referred to as 'flaming ' (O'Sullivan & Flanagin, 2003;Suler, 2004;Turnage, 2008). In Doughty et al's (2014) study 'flaming', which is described as a negative aspect of the ODE, tended to be directed at the individuals or specific communities depicted in these broadcasts. In addition, Lange (2007) and Moor, Heuvelman, and Verleur (2010) investigated possible causes of 'flaming' behaviour on YouTube and found that people predominantly 'flamed' to express their disagreement with certain video or comment content.…”

“…Further, Doughty, Lawson, Linehan, Rowland, and Bennett (2014) found that controversial television broadcasts elicited many polarised (i.e. anti-social, abusive, negative, aggressive and hostile tweets -a phenomenon frequently referred to as 'flaming ' (O'Sullivan & Flanagin, 2003;Suler, 2004;Turnage, 2008).…”

An Audience Perspective on the 2nd Screen Phenomenon

“…The social TV cluster investigates what motivates audiences to engage in online commenting via social media and how these audiences are internally diversified (Doughty, Lawson, Linehan, Rowland & Bennett, 2014), and on how online conversation patterns can vary across various types of TV shows (Mukherjee, Wong & Jansen, 2014) or within TV shows (Giglietto & Selva, 2014). The media experience cluster studies to what extent the TV viewing experience is impacted by the additional second screen (Kusumoto, Kinnunen, Kätsyri, Lindroos & Oittinen, 2014;Murphy & Hughes, 2014;Van Cauwenberge, Schaap & van Roy, 2014).…”