Fewer people, more flames: How pre-existing beliefs and volume of negative comments impact online news readers’ verbal aggression

IF 8.3 2区管理学 Q1 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE

Telematics and Informatics Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI:10.1016/j.tele.2020.101471

John Petit , Cong Li , Khudejah Ali

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引用次数: 4

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have documented an increase in flaming behavior, which refers to a strong and hostile expression of emotions and feelings online. In order to identify the mechanism and specific circumstances of flaming, this study employed emotional contagion as the main theoretical framework and conducted a 2 (argument presented in a news article: support gun control vs. against gun control) × 2 (volume of negative comments: small vs. large) × 2 (news readers’ pre-existing beliefs: support gun control vs. against gun control) between-subjects experiment. Participants were asked to read an online news article about a gun-related topic as well as negative reader comments before they wrote a comment of their own. The experimental results showed that participants were more likely to use swear words in their comments when their viewpoint was diametrically opposed to the argument presented in the news article and when the article was accompanied by a low volume of negative comments. This interaction effect was mediated by negative emotions that participants experienced when reading the article and its associated comments. These findings have theoretical implications for future research pertaining to the identification of online circumstances and causes that could help mitigate the occurrence of flaming.

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人少火焰多：预先存在的信念和负面评论量如何影响网络新闻读者的言语攻击

近年来，学者们记录了燃烧行为的增加，燃烧行为指的是网上强烈而敌对的情绪和感受表达。为了确定燃烧的机理和具体情况，本研究以情绪传染为主要理论框架，在受试者之间进行了2（新闻文章中提出的论点：支持枪支管制与反对枪支管制）×2（负面评论量：小与大）×2的实验。参与者被要求阅读一篇关于枪支相关话题的在线新闻文章，以及读者的负面评论，然后再写自己的评论。实验结果表明，当参与者的观点与新闻文章中提出的论点截然相反，并且文章中的负面评论量很低时，他们更有可能在评论中使用脏话。这种互动效应是由参与者在阅读文章及其相关评论时所经历的负面情绪介导的。这些发现对未来的研究具有理论意义，这些研究涉及识别网络环境和原因，有助于减少燃烧的发生。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Telematics and Informatics INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE-

CiteScore

17.00

自引率

4.70%

发文量

104

审稿时长

24 days

期刊介绍： Telematics and Informatics is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes cutting-edge theoretical and methodological research exploring the social, economic, geographic, political, and cultural impacts of digital technologies. It covers various application areas, such as smart cities, sensors, information fusion, digital society, IoT, cyber-physical technologies, privacy, knowledge management, distributed work, emergency response, mobile communications, health informatics, social media's psychosocial effects, ICT for sustainable development, blockchain, e-commerce, and e-government.