Abstract
Studying incivility in online discussions is a crucial research endeavor, especially in light of a pandemic, as user comments have been shown to be an important source of information and basis for opinion formation. Scholars are increasingly interested in studying incivility from a comparative perspective. This study contributes to this strand of literature by investigating incivility in user comments on the news website and Facebook site of the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. A content analysis (N = 240) was employed to identify forms and levels of incivility in user comments on topics related to COVID-19. Results show Facebook comments to be significantly less uncivil than user comments on the newspaper's website. Moreover, differences regarding the prevalence of the dimensions of incivility on the two platforms were identified. Finally, results suggest that incivility does not necessarily go hand in hand with lower levels of deliberative quality. Implications for news organizations and democracy are discussed.
Highlights
IntroductionIncivility is seen as a threat to online discourse since it can discourage people from engaging in online discussions and hinder inclusive discussions (Frischlich et al, 2019)
In the literature, incivility is discussed controversially
Building on comparative research on incivility in online discussions, this study focused on user comments on two different types of news comment sections
Summary
Incivility is seen as a threat to online discourse since it can discourage people from engaging in online discussions and hinder inclusive discussions (Frischlich et al, 2019). Scholars started exploring new ways of investigating incivility by employing cross-national and cross-platform comparison (Humprecht et al, 2020; Otto et al, 2020; Yarchi et al, 2021). Recent research highlights that incivility and rationality do not necessarily exclude one another (Rossini, 2020). Our study makes an important contribution to both strands of research by investigating incivility and deliberative quality in user comments on two different platforms that are highly popular among Austrian news users - the news website and the Facebook site of the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard. By focusing on user comments on articles dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, we chose a very polarizing and emotional topic, and one that is highly relevant around the globe and will likely stay pertinent for some time
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