Comments make for polarization

[wmw999 2,589]

Another interesting editorial in the NY Times Sunday. I've copied it, because after a short while it's not available.

Quote

This Story Stinks
By DOMINIQUE BROSSARD and DIETRAM A. SCHEUFELE
Published: March 2, 2013 IN the beginning, the technology gods created the Internet and saw that it was good. Here, at last, was a public sphere with unlimited potential for reasoned debate and the thoughtful exchange of ideas, an enlightening conversational bridge across the many geographic, social, cultural, ideological and economic boundaries that ordinarily separate us in life, a way to pay bills without a stamp.

Then someone invented “reader comments” and paradise was lost.

The Web, it should be said, is still a marvelous place for public debate. But when it comes to reading and understanding news stories online — like this one, for example — the medium can have a surprisingly potent effect on the message. Comments from some readers, our research shows, can significantly distort what other readers think was reported in the first place.

But here, it’s not the content of the comments that matters. It’s the tone.

In a study published online last month in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, we and three colleagues report on an experiment designed to measure what one might call “the nasty effect.”

We asked 1,183 participants to carefully read a news post on a fictitious blog, explaining the potential risks and benefits of a new technology product called nanosilver. These infinitesimal silver particles, tinier than 100-billionths of a meter in any dimension, have several potential benefits (like antibacterial properties) and risks (like water contamination), the online article reported.

Then we had participants read comments on the post, supposedly from other readers, and respond to questions regarding the content of the article itself.

Half of our sample was exposed to civil reader comments and the other half to rude ones — though the actual content, length and intensity of the comments, which varied from being supportive of the new technology to being wary of the risks, were consistent across both groups. The only difference was that the rude ones contained epithets or curse words, as in: “If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these kinds of products, you’re an idiot” and “You’re stupid if you’re not thinking of the risks for the fish and other plants and animals in water tainted with silver.”

The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.

In the civil group, those who initially did or did not support the technology — whom we identified with preliminary survey questions — continued to feel the same way after reading the comments. Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology.

Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.

While it’s hard to quantify the distortional effects of such online nastiness, it’s bound to be quite substantial, particularly — and perhaps ironically — in the area of science news.

An estimated 60 percent of the Americans seeking information about specific scientific matters say the Internet is their primary source of information — ranking it higher than any other news source.

Our emerging online media landscape has created a new public forum without the traditional social norms and self-regulation that typically govern our in-person exchanges — and that medium, increasingly, shapes both what we know and what we think we know.

One possible approach to moderate the nasty effect, of course, is to shut down online reader comments altogether, as some media organizations and bloggers have done. Paul Krugman’s blog post on this newspaper’s Web site on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, for instance, simply ended with “I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.”

Other media outlets have devised rules to promote civility or have actively moderated reader comments.

But as they say, the genie is out of the bottle. Reader interaction is part of what makes the Web the Web — and, for that matter, Facebook, Twitter and every other social media platform what they are. This phenomenon will only gain momentum as we move deeper into a world of smart TVs and mobile devices where any type of content is immediately embedded in a constant stream of social context and commentary.

It’s possible that the social norms in this brave new domain will change once more — with users shunning meanspirited attacks from posters hiding behind pseudonyms and cultivating civil debate instead.

Until then, beware the nasty effect.

Dominique Brossard and Dietram A. Scheufele are professors of science communication at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[rushmc 23]

Wendy

Do you read the comments?

I rarely do

I have seen other comment to them at times

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Andy9o8 2]

Comments

Consider the source. Fucking professors. Worse than lawyers, if that's possible.

-Andrew Nine O'Eight

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Comments

Consider the source. Fucking professors. Worse than lawyers, if that's possible.

-Andrew Nine O'Eight

Ok

You do not acept PM's so I will post this here

I gotta admit

You made a post not too long ago about you coming here for entertainment

So I see many of your posts in a whole new light

NOW

You owe me a keyboard cause there is now coffe all over it

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[wmw999 2,589]

I only read the comments on dz.com , and that's bad enough. But the editorial is about more than comments, it's about how people react to the language that is used, not just in comments.

So rants on the radio, TV or anywhere else will get you more fired up. If that's their purpose, well, then it worked, and you (not you, Rush, just the rhetorical you) were played.

Oh, and to Andy? pphhhlllppptttt!

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[rushmc 23]

Quote

I only read the comments on dz.com , and that's bad enough. But the editorial is about more than comments, it's about how people react to the language that is used, not just in comments.

So rants on the radio, TV or anywhere else will get you more fired up. If that's their purpose, well, then it worked, and you (not you, Rush, just the rhetorical you) were played.

Oh, and to Andy? pphhhlllppptttt!

Wendy P.

Ok

I get your point

I guess for the most part I would not agree

Because what is rant and what is not a rant can be very subjective depending on a point of view

And do that to Andy again

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 2,150]

Quote

Comments

Consider the source. Fucking professors. Worse than lawyers, if that's possible.

-Andrew Nine O'Eight

What he said!

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.