The Mainstreaming of Verbally Aggressive Online Political Behaviors

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the relationship between verbal aggression and uncivil media attention on political flaming. More specifically, this paper examines whether the use of uncivil media programming is associated with the perceived acceptability and intention to engage in aggressive online discussions (i.e., online political flaming) and whether this relationship varies by verbal aggression. The results show that individuals less inclined to engage in aggressive communication tactics (i.e., low in verbal aggression) become more accepting of flaming and show greater intention to flame as their attention to uncivil media increases. By contrast, those with comparatively higher levels of verbal aggression show a decrease in acceptance and intention to flame as their attention to these same media increases.

Is Politeness Catalytic and Contagious? Effects on Participation in Online News Discussions

“…Research on online verbal abuse has examined user-generated comments in blogs [2,10], news websites [8,11,20], and YouTube [22], mostly focusing on the concept of incivility, which appears closely related to impoliteness. Although the two concepts are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation, they are conceptualized in distinct ways in the literature.…”

“…This study conducted a computer-mediated discourse analysis of online news comments by adopting as a theoretical approach [5]'s politeness analysis. The findings of the discursive strategies employed by news commenters and their effects on participation by subsequent discussants provide a view of the social interactions among commenters and repliers in news comment sections that extends beyond attempts to confirm the prevalence of uncivil messages [11] or explore predictors of flaming behavior [10]. Moreover, this study elucidates how commenters and repliers seek to construct and maintain a favorable public self-image and autonomy in opinion formation and respond to each other's face wants through different discursive strategies, by going beyond the dichotomy of politeness and impoliteness [27] to distinguish between positive and negative politeness.…”

Impact of Anonymity and Social Modeling: Online Aggression in Emerging Adults and Their Religious and Political Ideologies

“…In the past decade, there have been rapid technological changes that have made opportunities to communicate using online tools more accessible and easy (Brown, 2006;Lenhard, 2009). This has coincided with online communication becoming an important and integral part of communication and self-expression among emerging adults (Brown, 2006;Cicchirillo, Hmielowski, & Hutchens, 2015;Yee, 2006). For example, Yee (2006) found that individuals have widely varying reasons for playing online games, or engaging in social interaction.…”

“…However, in an online environment, the synchronous nature of anonymity and social modeling cues might intensify political discussion. Paying attention to other individuals who engage in aggressive discourse on political blogs, columns, or talk radio might cultivate beliefs that using aggressive language when talking about politics online is acceptable behavior (Cicchirillo et al, 2015).…”

“…Most obviously, they are at a stage of development where they have greater independence in their ability to express themselves and their beliefs (Arnett, 2004). When looking at their actual engagement in online environments, there are clear differences, that include the fact their internet usage is significantly higher (Greenwood, Perrin, & Duggan, 2016), and they tend to utilize social media for communications and self-expression in different ways (Brown, 2006;Cicchirillo, Hmielowski, & Hutchens, 2015;Griffiths et al, 2017). Further, their ability to control their usage of social media differs from adolescents or young adults that may still depend upon parents to monitor, pay for, or access their activities (Lenhart, 2009).…”