Just the Way I Am: The Effects of Personality Traits and Situational Factors on the Deliberativeness and Civility of User Comments on News Websites

• In Event: User Comments and Feedback

Abstract

The reputation of the comment sections on news websites is not too positive nowadays. Instead of deliberative debate and participation, some comment sections indicate a rather one-sided expression of opinion, often paired with a high level of incivility. Past research offers several approaches explaining comment quality through sociotechnical, cultural, or news factors. Our study, in contrast, examines the effects of users' personality traits (Big5, Dark Tetrad) and states (cognitive/affective involvement) on the deliberativeness and civility of user comments on news websites, using a multi-method approach. Results show that, consistent to previous research, personality traits like everyday sadism or extraversion impact comments' civility, while socio-cognitive involvement affects deliberativeness. Thus, writing (non-)deliberative and (un-)civil comments partly seems to be “a personal matter”. The key variable to understand the emergence of specific commenting behavior, however, seems to be the specific type of situational involvement triggered by specific kinds of news stories and comments.

Authors

• Johannes Beckert, Johannes Gutenberg-U Mainz

• Marc Ziegele, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

• Oliver Quiring, Johannes Gutenberg - U Mainz