Is offensive commenting contagious online? Examining public vs interpersonal swearing in response to Donald Trump’s YouTube campaign videos

K Hazel Kwon,Anatoliy Gruzd

doi:10.1108/intr-02-2017-0072

K Hazel Kwon, Anatoliy Gruzd

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1108/intr-02-2017-0072

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Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the spillover effects of offensive commenting in online community from the lens of emotional and behavioral contagion. Specifically, it examines the contagion of swearing – a linguistic mannerism that conveys high-arousal emotion – based upon two mechanisms of contagion: mimicry and social interaction effect.Design/methodology/approachThe study performs a series of mixed-effect logistic regressions to investigate the contagious potential of offensive comments collected from YouTube in response to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign videos posted between January and April 2016.FindingsThe study examines non-random incidences of two types of swearing online: public and interpersonal. Findings suggest that a first-level (a.k.a. parent) comment’s public swearing tends to trigger chains of interpersonal swearing in the second-level (a.k.a. child) comments. Meanwhile, among the child-comments, a sequentially preceding comment’s swearing is contagious to the following comment only across the same swearing type. Based on the findings, the study concludes that offensive comments are contagious and have impact on shaping the community-wide linguistic norms of online user interactions.Originality/valueThe study discusses the ways in which an individual’s display of offensiveness may influence and shape discursive cultures on the internet. This study delves into the mechanisms of text-based contagion by differentiating between mimicry effect and social interaction effect. While online emotional contagion research to this date has focused on the difference between positive and negative valence, internet research that specifically looks at the contagious potential of offensive expressions remains sparse.

Highlights

Online Emotional Contagion The majority of emotional contagion research posit that nonverbal behavioral cues convey greater emotionality than linguistic cues (Hatfield et al, 1993b)
This study argues that text-based emotional contagion occurs by instantaneous exposure to an emotive linguistic marker and through comment-based social interactions
To confirm whether swearing is an exemplar of offensive linguistic markers, two coders evaluated the level of verbal aggression and anger in a randomly selected sample of 500 comments

Summary

Introduction

Online Emotional Contagion The majority of emotional contagion research (in face-to-face contexts) posit that nonverbal behavioral cues convey greater emotionality than linguistic cues (Hatfield et al, 1993b). The current study advances the emotional contagion literature by examining the spillover effect of offensive comments in public online communities (i.e., on YouTube). While swear words are one of the widely used linguistic cues for emotional expressions in online discussions, part of reason swearing contagion has not been examined from the lens of mimicry theory could be due to its anti-normative functionality.

Results

Conclusion