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The end of constructive engagement online? Toxic outrage in user-generated debates across political systems and online discussion arenas
Jakob, Julia
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Dobbrick, Timo
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Freudenthaler, Rainer
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Haffner, Patrik
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Wessler, Hartmut
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Document Type:
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Conference presentation
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Year of publication:
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2021
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Conference title:
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ICA 2021 - 71th Annual International Communication Association Conference, Preconference: Comparative Perspectives on Negativity, Incivility, and Toxic Talk
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Location of the conference venue:
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Online
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Date of the conference:
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27.05.2021
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Publication language:
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English
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Institution:
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School of Humanities > Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (Wessler 2007-)
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Subject:
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070 News media, journalism, publishing
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Abstract:
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This study is the first to simultaneously investigate country-level and platform-related context factors of toxic outrage, i.e. destructive incivility, in online discussions. It compares user comments on the public role of religion and secularism from 2015/16 in four democracies (Australia, United States, Germany, Switzerland) and four discussion arenas on three platforms. A novel automated content analysis (N = 1,236,551) combines LIWC dictionaries with machine learning. The level of toxic outrage is higher in majoritarian (USA, AUS) than in consensus-oriented political systems and higher in arenas that afford plural, issue-driven rather than like-minded, preference-driven debates. Yet, toxic outrage is lower in forums that tend to separate public and private conversations than in those that collapse varying contexts. This suggests that user-generated discussions flourish in environments that incentivize actors to strive for compromise, put relevant issues center stage, and make room for public debate at a relative distance from purely social conversation.
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 Search Authors in
BASE:
Jakob, Julia
;
Dobbrick, Timo
;
Freudenthaler, Rainer
;
Haffner, Patrik
;
Wessler, Hartmut
Google Scholar:
Jakob, Julia
;
Dobbrick, Timo
;
Freudenthaler, Rainer
;
Haffner, Patrik
;
Wessler, Hartmut
ORCID:
Jakob, Julia  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2340-5193, Dobbrick, Timo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6252-1157, Freudenthaler, Rainer ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9075-1232, Haffner, Patrik and Wessler, Hartmut ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-5471
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