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The “Nasty Effect:” Online Incivility and Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies
Abstract
Uncivil discourse is a growing concern in American rhetoric, and this trend has expanded beyond traditional media to online sources, such as audience comments. Using an experiment given to a sample representative of the U.S. population, we examine the effects online incivility on perceptions toward a particular issue—namely, an emerging technology, nanotechnology. We found that exposure to uncivil blog comments can polarize risk perceptions of nanotechnology along the lines of religiosity and issue support.
... 1 Introduction 2020]. Moreover, emotional, heated discussions sometimes take an uncivil route [Anderson et al., 2013]. ...
... Even though incivility may not be a clear term and its presence cannot be reliably compared, the effects of uncivil communication on engagement behavior, opinion formation, and issue perceptions [e.g., Anderson et al., 2013;Borah, 2012;Chinn & Hart, 2021] show the necessity to further explore this phenomenon, and to sharpen the conceptualization, especially around an issue with high societal relevance and many controversies such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers have discovered that exposure to incivility can polarize risk perception on a scientific issue [Anderson et al., 2013]. ...
... Even though incivility may not be a clear term and its presence cannot be reliably compared, the effects of uncivil communication on engagement behavior, opinion formation, and issue perceptions [e.g., Anderson et al., 2013;Borah, 2012;Chinn & Hart, 2021] show the necessity to further explore this phenomenon, and to sharpen the conceptualization, especially around an issue with high societal relevance and many controversies such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers have discovered that exposure to incivility can polarize risk perception on a scientific issue [Anderson et al., 2013]. Incivility can also increase aggressiveness [Gervais, 2015;Rösner, Winter & Krämer, 2016] or lead people to retaliate [Masullo Chen & Lu, 2017;Masullo Chen, Muddiman, Wilner, Pariser & Stroud, 2019]. ...
The Covid-19 pandemic illustrated important developments in science communication, with direct online interactions between scientists and the public. This study performs a content analysis of tweets (“N” = 6,000) directed at German virologists (“N” = 6) during the pandemic’s first year. It identifies substantial levels of incivility and trustworthiness concerns, which often co-occurred. These findings enhance our understanding of online communication dynamics in crises by showing how incivility and trustworthiness concerns are not only prevalent but also evolve in response to specific events and phases. This analysis provides insight into the complexities of public sentiment toward scientists during the pandemic.
... and the Internet & social media are the second most blamed source for incivility erosion (69%), next to politicians (75%) (Shandwick 2018). To combat incivility, a growing amount of literature in recent years has studied incivility's prevalence and effect (Anderson et al. 2013;Coe, Kenski, and Rains 2014). For example, Anderson et al. (2013) showed that incivility can trigger negative reactions in those who have been directed at or exposed to it. ...
... To combat incivility, a growing amount of literature in recent years has studied incivility's prevalence and effect (Anderson et al. 2013;Coe, Kenski, and Rains 2014). For example, Anderson et al. (2013) showed that incivility can trigger negative reactions in those who have been directed at or exposed to it. Another line of research used empirical studies to investigate the emotional states that incivility triggers (Gervais 2015). ...
... Online incivility plays a huge role in shaping conversations and online communities. Extensive experimental and largescale quantitative work has been conducted to understand its prevalence in online media and how uncivil behaviors affect people's attitudes towards news topics (Anderson et al. 2013) or their perception of credibility for news sources (Ng and Detenber 2005). Another line of research work (Gervais 2015;Lee 2005) used randomized experiments to study the effect of exposure to incivility and found that being exposed to high levels of incivility increases feelings of anger and aversion while decreasing satisfaction. ...
Growing concerns have been raised about the detrimental effects of uncivil comments on the web towards democracy. However, there is still a lack of understanding about online incivility's nuanced and complicated nature and its impact on conversation development and user behaviors. This work aims to fill that research gap by modeling incivility and its relationship to political discussions. We develop a comprehensive and fine-grained taxonomy that characterizes incivility with vulgarity, name-calling (inter-personal and third-party attacks), aspersion, and stereotypes, and then apply the framework to quantify the level of each incivility category in over 40 million comments from Reddit. Using large-scale quantitative analysis, we investigate the types of interactions and contexts in which incivility is more likely to occur, model how incivility shapes subsequent conversations, and examine user engagement patterns and behavioral changes after exposure to incivility. Our findings show that conversations that start out uncivil tend to become more uncivil in responses, and exposure to different incivility categories has differing effects on community members' engagement. We conclude with the implications of our research in assisting the design and moderation of online political communities.
... However, Carr and Hayes (2015) defines SM as "internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from usergenerated content and the perception of interaction with others." Similarly, the definition of 'incivility' also has been discussed and argued among communication scholars (Anderson et al., 2014) and they explain incivility as a violation of wellestablished face-to-face social norms for the polite expression of opposing views (Mutz and Reeves, 2005) but, some studies define incivility as a manner of offensive interaction that can vary between aggressive commenting, incensed discussion and rude critiques, outrageous claims, hate speech and harassment according to Antoci et al. (2016). ...
... This is in line with Mert, Şen and Abubakar (2023), who identified SM usage as a predictor of incivility. The spectrum of offensive interactions experienced by SLN personnel ranging from aggressive comments to hate speech reflects the broader definitions of SMI found in the literature (Anderson et al., 2014;Antoci et al., 2016). ...
This study examines the impact of social media (SM) usage on information security (IS) and operational integrity (OI) within the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), with a particular focus on social media incivility. The Western Naval Command (WNC) is used as a case study due to its high operational engagement and SM usage among personnel. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews to analyse patterns of SM usage and its association with unauthorised information sharing and operational breaches. The findings reveal a significant correlation between SM usage and risks to operational security, exacerbated by online incivility such as aggressive comments, harassment, and dissemination of sensitive information. Additionally, social media incivility mediates the relationship between SM usage and OI, contributing to emotional distress and decreased morale among personnel. The study underscores the urgent need for comprehensive social media guidelines, enhanced cybersecurity measures, and training programs to foster responsible SM usage and safeguard IS. Recommendations include implementing policy changes, conducting awareness campaigns, and fostering a culture of digital responsibility within the SLN to mitigate the identified risks.
... Several researchers have noted the association between online consumption of misinformation, and altered perceptions of issues, negative emotions, attitude change, and undermining of pro-social behavior when offline (Anderson et al., 2014;Weber et al., 2020). For instance, engagement with a particular online community of young men who feel rejected by women (known as Incel) has been associated with serious incidents of mass violence Horne, 2021;Tomkinson et al., 2020). ...
... In Canada, antivax social media focussed on issues of the safety of the vaccine, beliefs that the virus was not dangerous (public health officials were fear mongering), and conspiracy theories (distrust in government, belief that the vaccine would alter DNA, or belief that vaccines contained microchips created by Bill Gates) (Tang et al., 2021). Repeated exposure to this type of information has been found to result in altered perceptions of issues, attitude change, negative emotions, and undermining of pro-social behavior (Anderson et al., 2014;Weber et al., 2020). In Canada, this fueled social media vitriol which focused on single individuals in each region of the country, that is, those professionals charged with overseeing public health measures. ...
... letters to the editor), they allow diverse public voices to be heard and provide an opportunity for discussion and debate (Hille and Bakker, 2014). User comments not only represent audience perspectives and provide a window into authentic public knowledge (Laslo and Baram-Tsabari, 2021), opinions (Orr and Baram-Tsabari, 2018), and sentiments (Lasser et al., 2020), but they also influence other users' attitudes about science (Jennings and Russell, 2019), affect their trust in science (Anderson et al., 2014), and shape how they apply scientific knowledge (Khosla and Pillay, 2020). Tabulating the volume of comments, emojis, clicks, and shares can be used as a rough index of user activity (e.g. ...
... On one hand, negative emotions can lead to flaming and incivility or degenerate into a toxic environment that negatively affects both the cognitive and affective aspects of debates (Wang, 2020). Moreover, readers often use negative emotions and impolite comments as interpretational lenses of the inferred content, which can affect readers' perceptions of the information in the main text (Anderson et al., 2014). On the other hand, negative emotions can also be interpreted as advantageous in particular educational contexts rather than solely being perceived as harmful to motivation, performance, and learning (Rowe and Fitness, 2018). ...
Numerous studies have explored internal factors such as cultural values and acquired knowledge accounting for how people engage with science. However, it remains unclear how external factors embedded in science texts relate to audience engagement. A content analysis of 298 text-based popular science news articles and their following 5852 reader comments was conducted in two Israeli audiences, science-minded and general readers, to explore how the accessibility strategies embedded in these articles relate to cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. Findings indicated similar patterns of relationship between accessibility strategies and engagement expressions for both audiences; however, the relationships were more pronounced for general readers compared to science-minded readers. Using jargon and a narrative writing style increased the odds of positive emotions in reader comments, whereas addressing socio-scientific issues increased the odds of cognitive expressions. These results may contribute to a fuller understanding of ways to drive meaningful public engagement.
... and shut down comment sections on their websites due to their perceived low quality [21]. But even on social networking sites, low-quality user discussions pose challenges to individual-level democratic benefits such as increased knowledge, tolerance, and familiarity with diverse viewpoints [32]. ...
... As early as 2014, Coe et al. emphasize the counterproductive nature of incivility, noting its hindrance to meaningful conversation and the rarity of its ability to encourage speaking out against it [15]. Exposure to uncivil discourse can polarize opinions, especially in the case of little-known topics [32]. In other studies, Gervais et al. delve into the psychological aftermath by demonstrating that exposure to disagreeable uncivil political talk can induce anger and aversion, diminishing satisfaction with message board discourse [33,37]. ...
Humanity needs to deliberate effectively at scale about highly complex and contentious problems. Current online deliberation tools—such as email, chatrooms, and forums—are however plagued by levels of discussion toxicity that deeply undercut the willingness and ability of the participants to engage in thoughtful, meaningful, deliberations. This has led many organizations to either shut down their forums or invest in expensive, frequently unreliable, and ethically fraught moderation of people's contributions in their forums. This paper includes a comprehensive review on online toxicity, and describes how a structured deliberation process can substantially reduce toxicity compared to current approaches. The key underlying insight is that unstructured conversations create, especially at scale, an “attention wars” dynamic wherein people are often incented to resort to extremified language in order to get visibility for their postings. A structured deliberation process wherein people collaboratively create a compact organized collection of answers and arguments removes this underlying incentive, and results, in our evaluation, in a 50% reduction of high-toxicity posts.
... Moreover, our research contributes to the limited body of knowledge on danmu, revealing its significant influence on viewers' emotions, content perception, and attitude formation. Existing studies have predominantly explored comments on of online news [66] and videos [67,68]. Möller et al. [67] highlighted the need to assess viewers' attention to comments, given the requirement to scroll down to view them, affecting their visibility. ...
Background
This study seeks to investigate the impact of anorexia awareness videos on the perception of anorexic figures and pro-anorexia attitude among young females, considering the employed fear appeals and the presence of pro-anorexia content in danmu, an online commenting system prevalent in China.
Methods
An experiment was conducted employing a 3 (Fear level of video: low, medium, high) × 4 (Danmu type: no danmu, pro-anorexia, anti-anorexia, mixed pro- and anti-anorexia) between-participants design. A total of 633 female participants were randomly assigned to view one of the twelve videos and subsequently evaluated on fear arousal, pro-anorexia attitude and perception of the anorexic figure scales.
Results
A moderated moderated mediation model demonstrates that heightened fear levels of anorexia awareness videos were linked to a more adverse perception of individuals with anorexia, subsequently reducing pro-anorexia attitude. Furthermore, the fear level of an anorexia awareness video, aroused fear, and the type of danmu interacted in a three-way manner regarding the perception of anorexic individuals. The presence of pro-anorexia content in danmu counteracted the observed positive impact.
Conclusions
These results imply that anorexia awareness videos should strive to evoke appropriate levels of fear while also addressing the potential adverse effects of pro-anorexia danmu, which may glorify anorexic bodies and undermine the intended protective outcomes.
... This is not surprising considering that lurkers make up over 90% of online groups (Preece et al., 2004;van der Linden et al., 2024). Lurkers are also important to study since their perceptions of polarization or incivility can affect their attitudes (Anderson et al., 2014) and arguably also their offline behaviors (Lieberman & Schroeder, 2020). Nevertheless, this lurker sample could explain the absence of a direct effect of subjectivity (and topic) on intention to join: very low scores with little variation. ...
... Students in higher education have developed adverse cognitive and psychological reactions and attitudes due to information, communication, and technology (ICT) (Anderson et al., 2014). Salanova et al. (2013) observe that when people use computers, they experience apprehension, nervousness, and discomfort. ...
... Moreover, Sydnor's (2018) study suggests that individuals are more likely to perceive incivility on Twitter than on other text-based platforms, indicating there may be something unique about this online platform. Research has shown that exposure to incivility on online forums can strengthen our political attitudes (Borah, 2013), generate negative emotions (Masullo Chen & Lu, 2017;Gervais, 2015), and turn users away from online discussions (Anderson et al., 2014). This paper extends our understanding of incivility and affect and considers whether incivility online is likely to be punished by partisans and whether it will impact affective orientations towards political parties. ...
Affective polarization is on the rise. Increasing polarization is often attributed to the nature of political discussion on social media platforms, but little is known about the affective consequences of the incivility of online discussion. This study adopts a trust game to consider whether people punish the incivility of both out-partisans and co-partisans and whether there are gender-related differences in punishment. It also examines whether incivility can have spillover effects on broader out-party hostility. Five pre-registered hypotheses are tested using a pair of survey experiments fielded to a sample (N = 974) of adult Canadian partisans. We find that participants punish the incivility of co-partisans but not out-partisans. However, incivility may spill over and heighten hostility towards out-parties more generally. Finally, we do not find evidence that women are more likely to be punished for incivility. Our findings highlight significant nuance with respect to the effects of incivility on trust and affective polarization, as well as the expectations of civility people hold for individuals online.
... Toxic comments, including insults, are the most common forms of harassment encountered online [28]. In the realm of online political discourse, toxicity not only amplifies extreme viewpoints and discourages moderate and marginalized voices, but it also deepens political divides, heightens polarization, and raises safety concerns that deter diverse participation in political discussions [29][30][31][32]. ...
Quantifying how individuals react to social influence is crucial for tackling collective political behavior online. While many studies of opinion in public forums focus on social feedback, they often overlook the potential for human interactions to result in self-censorship. Here, we investigate political deliberation in online spaces by exploring the hypothesis that individuals may refrain from expressing minority opinions publicly due to being exposed to toxic behavior. Analyzing conversations under YouTube videos from six prominent US news outlets around the 2020 US presidential elections, we observe patterns of self-censorship signaling the influence of peer toxicity on users' behavior. Using hidden Markov models, we identify a latent state consistent with toxicity-driven silence. Such state is characterized by reduced user activity and a higher likelihood of posting toxic content, indicating an environment where extreme and antisocial behaviors thrive. Our findings offer insights into the intricacies of online political deliberation and emphasize the importance of considering self-censorship dynamics to properly characterize ideological polarization in digital spheres.
... Six interaction terms were created by multiplying the standardized values of AI information exposure and discrete emotions. The arrangement of variables was determined based on prior studies, which entered variables in the order of value predispositions, media-related variables, and topic-specific orientations (Anderson et al., 2014;Brossard et al., 2009;Liang et al., 2015). In the context of our study, both discrete emotions and AI knowledge represent AI-specific orientations, and thus, they were placed sided by side in the model after information exposure. ...
While artificial intelligence (AI) garners widespread media attention as an emerging technology, empirical research on how AI-related information influences public opinion is scarce, especially among those with preexisting emotions toward AI. Utilizing a survey of 1,206 U.S. adults, this study examined how communication about AI and three discrete emotions (anger, fear, and hope) jointly affect public attitudes. More exposure to AI information from mediated sources was linked to stronger support for AI, particularly among those reporting more anger and less hope toward AI. Conversely, there was no significant association between information exposure from interpersonal sources and public support.
... Apart from creating a toxic environment, exposure to incivility online is associated with an increase in polarization (Anderson et al., 2014) and a reduction in open-mindedness (Borah, 2014). Regarding the expressions of incivility among politicians, there has been an increase in citizens' distrust and dissatisfaction with political institutions, representatives, and parties (Brooks & Geer, 2007;Cappella & Jamieson, 1997). ...
This research uses artificial intelligence and manual content-analysis to examine the diffusion of incivility against political leaders on Twitter during the 2022 Italian election campaign. Using a mixed approach (artificial intelligence and manual content analysis), we examined 22,465 uncivil tweets posted in the 4 weeks before the vote. Results show that hostility toward leaders increases as voting approaches and as candidates’ public visibility grows, and that it affects frontrunner leaders the most. Furthermore, the analysis of the different forms of incivility showed that it changes depending on the target it hits, revealing unexpected aspects: contrary to expectations, incivility against the only female leader (Giorgia Meloni) are not “sexist attacks” but forms of demonization (i.e., association with figures/symbols concerning totalitarian regimes); while against Giuseppe Conte, accusations of “illegality,” lies and “misinformation” prevail, that is, the same kind of incivility that he and his party use against opponents. Finally, we found that the authors of uncivil attacks are mainly ordinary/sporadic users, with all the consequences that this implies in terms of a normalization of incivility in public debate.
... Online discussions and participation platforms bring people together to discuss issues that are of high relevance to society. However, it is well known that the written exchanges in online spaces are often characterized by incivility (Anderson et al., 2014) and lack of structure (Arana-Catania et al., 2021). To address these challenges, the concept of deliberation can be particularly useful. ...
Online spaces allow people to discuss important issues and make joint decisions, regardless of their location or time zone. However, without proper support and thoughtful design, these discussions often lack structure and politeness during the exchanges of opinions. Artificial intelligence (AI) represents an opportunity to support both participants and organizers of large-scale online participation processes. In this paper, we present an extension of adhocracy+, a large-scale open source participation platform, that provides two additional debate modules that are supported by AI to enhance the discussion quality and participant interaction.
... The hallmark of this category is general verbal abuse. A number of specific rhetorical devices fall under this category, such as ad hominem attacks, character assassinations, mockery and ridicule, namecalling and invectives, and other insults(Anderson et al., 2014;Berry and Sobieraj 2013;Brooks and Geer 2007;Coe, Kenski, & Rains, 2014;Fridkin and Kenney 2008;Massaro & Stryker, 2012;Stryker et al. 2016). Belittling of a political opponent might also be accomplished through the inclusion of superfluous adverbs and adjectives, which add no new information, but are purposefully insulting, demeaning, and condescending(Brooks and Geer 2007;Fridkin and Kenney 2008; Mutz and Reeves 2005;Thorson, Vraga, and Ekdale, 2010). ...
When political elites use incivility, does it aggravate affective polarization among co-partisans? Prior work has come to conflicting conclusions: while some studies have found evidence of polarizing effects, other work has found evidence of depolarizing effects. How do we reconcile these claims? As suggested by theory social and political psychology, the ability of co-partisan incivility to aggravates affective polarization is conditional on the presence of threat to group status. However, whether elites can induce a sense of in-party status threat via messaging is unclear; to the extent that elites cannot manipulate this, the ability to reap benefits via the strategic use of incivility will be restricted to conditions outside of their control. Leveraging the results of three survey experiments conducted between September 2020 and November 2022 on national samples, I find that co-partisan elite incivility aggravated affective polarization in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, an effect that was moderated by partisan strength and elite identity. However, in the two experiments conducted outside of election season, incivility had null effects, even among strong partisans. Moreover, elite messaging failed to manipulate in-party status threat. The results demonstrate that co-partisan elite incivility can affectively polarize partisans when in-party status threat is salient but raises doubts about the ability of elites to manufacture such conditions rhetorically.
... Third, our findings also point to the importance of discussion manner in social media, adding to the theoretical discussion on the effects of online incivility. Theoretically, we reaffirmed that uncivil discussion could contribute to political polarization (Anderson et al., 2014) by terminating the relationship with source of uncomfortableness. While previous research has suggested the positive relationship between uncivil discussion and social media filtering (Goyanes et al., 2021), our research broadens the literature by exploring how the manner of the discussion moderates the relationship between discomfort and the intention to filter social media. ...
To examine how political differences on social media disrupt user relationships, we conduct two 2 (political disagreement vs. political agreement) × 2 (civil vs. uncivil discussion) between-subjects experiments, with adult and college student samples. The results show that political disagreement heightens feelings of uncomfortableness, which in turn increases the intention to engage in social media filtering actions. Discussion manner moderates the association between uncomfortableness and social media filtering intention in college students, but not in adults. Uncomfortableness positively predicts filtering intention with civil discussion, whereas uncivil discussion leads to higher social media filtering intention regardless of the level of uncomfortableness. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings, which have implications for the development of strategies aimed at mitigating the trends of political polarization.
... Meaningless disruption of the online environment is an important feature that distinguishes malicious online trolling from antisocial behaviors such as cyberbullying [3]. This destruction not only harms the friendly atmosphere of online communication but also hinders the development of online platforms [9]. More seriously, malicious online trolling can cause various adverse effects on Internet users, including anxiety, depression, and other physical problems [10,11], as well as increased self-harm and suicidal thoughts [12,13]. ...
Malicious online trolling is prevalent among Chinese college students and has recently garnered extensive attention from researchers due to the substantial harm it causes to the victims and the damage it inflicts on the online environment. Most previous studies have focused on examining how personal traits related to malicious online trolling. Further comprehensive research is needed to explore the mechanisms linking external environmental factors (antisocial media exposure) and malicious online trolling. A total of 1259 Chinese college students completed questionnaires regarding malicious online trolling, antisocial media exposure, hostile attribution bias, and empathy. The results indicated a positive association between antisocial media exposure and malicious online trolling among Chinese college students, with hostile attribution bias serving as a mediating factor. Furthermore, the direct and mediated paths between antisocial media exposure and malicious online trolling were moderated by empathy. Specifically, as the level of empathy increased among college students, the relations between the variables all weakened. Excessive exposure to antisocial media content among college students may trigger hostile attribution bias and lead to more malicious online trolling behavior. However, the relation between antisocial media exposure and malicious online trolling, hostile attribution bias and malicious online trolling, was attenuated when college students’ empathy levels were high.
... Heated debates naturally involve aggressive and conflictual discourse, and studies find that this can make discussions more engaging while still appealing to deliberative persuasion [24,27,28]. Be that as it may, uncivil discourse is regarded as both symptomatic of polarization, and as a fuel that exacerbates it further [29,30]. Research finds that uncivil discourse can elicit a feedback loop that provokes it in others, that alienates more civil participants from platforms, and distorts perceptions of political life altogether [31,32]. ...
Early optimism saw possibilities for social media to renew democratic discourse, marked by hopes for individuals from diverse backgrounds to find opportunities to learn from and interact with others different from themselves. This optimism quickly waned as social media seemed to breed ideological homophily marked by “filter bubbles” or “echo chambers.” A typical response to the sense of fragmentation has been to encourage exposure to more cross-partisan sources of information. But do outlets that reach across partisan lines in fact generate more civil discourse? And does the civility of discourse hosted by such outlets vary depending on the political context in which they operate? To answer these questions, we identified bubble reachers, users who distribute content that reaches other users with diverse political opinions in recent presidential elections in Brazil, where populism has deep roots in the political culture, and Canada, where the political culture is comparatively moderate. Given that background, this research studies unexplored properties of content shared by bubble reachers, specifically the quality of conversations and comments it generates. We examine how ideologically neutral bubble reachers differ from ideologically partisan accounts in the level of uncivil discourse they provoke, and explore how this varies in the context of the two countries considered. Our results suggest that while ideologically neutral bubble reachers support less uncivil discourse in Canada, the opposite relationship holds in Brazil. Even non-political content by ideologically neutral bubble reachers elicits a considerable amount of uncivil discourse in Brazil. This indicates that bubble reaching and incivility are moderated by the national political context. Our results complicate the simple hypothesis of a universal impact of neutral bubble reachers across contexts.
... These platforms frequently disseminate rumours, stereotypes and prejudices to specific groups. This situation presents a challenge for news media, as the proliferation of expressions of hate and their impact on how readers perceive and interpret messages contribute to the polarization of public opinion behaviour (Anderson et al., 2014;Russmann and Hess, 2023;Wintterlin et al., 2020). ...
This study examines the characteristics and behaviours of accounts that propagate hate speech through their responses to articles posted on five leading digital news media in Spain on Platform X (previously Twitter). Using non-experimental quantitative research, we analysed 1345 hate-expressing messages from 173,449 user comments on content shared in five leading digital news media during January 2021. Network analysis, the Homophilic Exposure Index (HEI), regression analysis and the k-means algorithm were used to identify features that characterize accounts that disseminate low-intensity hate expressions in a coordinated manner, undermining the moderation efforts of digital news media. As a result, digital news media must develop strategies to reduce the presence of this type of expression and confront accounts that operate covertly in a coordinated manner, using Astroturfing to manipulate debates around the content published on X.
... Some organizations justified this action by saying that it would be helpful to avoid hatred and biases, whereas many others expressed those nasty comments negatively influence their brand image and reputation (Cheng, 2019). According to some scholars, people are not affected by the exposure to others' opinions simply because they have strong pre-existing beliefs and selectively expose themselves to opinions consistent with their own (Anderson et al., 2014;Walther et al., 2010). However, online users could react negatively when the comment section is disabled. ...
Communicators often find it challenging to prioritize the public and manage their comments during risk communication. This study explored the effects of comments as interactivity cues on news diffusion while considering situational factors under the framework of the Situational Theory of Problem Solving in the context of the US-China trade conflict. For this purpose, the researchers conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of interactivity cues and public segmentations on news sharing. The findings suggest that comments elicit different news-sharing behaviors among different segments of the public. The aware public shares more news than the activists/active public who are more likely to share when exposed to news posts with disabled comments than those with enabled comments. The results regarding the different segments of the public suggest the absence of the latent public in hot issues. Furthermore, the results suggest that message attributes have a limited effect on individuals’ information-processing behavior unless considering situational factors. The theoretical contributions and practical implications for communicators are further discussed.
... Uncivil behavior in this framing is synonymous with toxicity, a term often used in online gaming mediums (Kowert 2020). Most research focuses on the effects of incivility in online discourse and mitigation of uncivil behavior at the individual and community level, rather than the effects and encouragement of more civil behavior (Munn 2020;Anderson et al. 2014;Gervais 2015). In our framework, we aim to map the individual and community components of civility onto our specific digital platform context while also emphasizing markers for positive, civil behavior. ...
Understanding the causal effects of civility is critical when analyzing online social communication, yet measuring causality is difficult. A/B tests and other randomized experiments are the gold standard for establishing causal effects but they are inapplicable in this setting due to 1) the inability to control civility levels in an experiment, and more importantly, 2) ethical constraints on intentionally randomizing civility levels. We develop a novel quasi-experimental approach to quantify the causal effect of civility in online communities on the Roblox social 3D platform without requiring explicit randomization. This method uses residual stochasticity in the "matchmaking" assignment of users to servers as a quasi-randomization mechanism in observational historical data. We find that assigning a user to a server with higher levels of civil communication could increase engagement time by as much as 1.5% in particular experiences. Given the 4.8B person hours spent monthly on the platform, this implies a potential increase of over 8,000 person years of social interaction every month. Furthermore, this effect is mis-estimated by non-causal methods. Quasi-experimental approaches promise new avenues for measuring the causal impact of user behavior in online communities without adversely affecting users through randomized experiments.
... Against this backdrop, it is crucial to understand which actors purposefully elicit emotional responses from online users and what content they use. Moreover, recent research has shown that users are increasingly exposed to negative emotions in online debates (D'Errico & Paciello, 2018;Humprecht et al., 2020;Kim & Kim, 2019), which can both influence their perception of the topic and reinforce the affective polarization of societies (Anderson et al., 2014;Yarchi et al., 2020). Moreover, rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable comments can make people leave a discussion, undermining participation and inclusion in public discourse (J. ...
ABSTRACT
This study employs a comparative analytical framework to enhanceour understanding of the conducive opportunity structures that fosteremotionally charged political discourse. We examined 175,539Facebook posts characterized by variations in content (in terms ofthemes and populist rhetoric), authorship (including populist politi-cians, traditional news, and alternative media), and geographic con-text (Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, UK, US). We thenanalyzed 360,000 emotional responses from Facebook users to deter-mine which posts create the most conducive conditions for elicitingangry emotions. Our key findings show that posts from alternative andhyperpartisan media, as well as those from populist politicians andparties, tend to elicit elevated levels of angry reactions. These postsoften use anti-elitist and exclusionary language. This finding has sig-nificant implications, as the anger generated by such accounts canpropagate incivility and polarization and facilitate the spread of ideo-logically driven misinformation. A particular case is Donald Trump,who, as a populist governing figure, manages to elicit positive emo-tions, including “love,” despite delivering seemingly antagonistic mes-sages. To strengthen the robustness of our findings, we conducteda replication analysis with 67,620 Facebook posts from three of the sixcountries and examined two different time periods. This analysis con-firmed the persistence of our findings over time. Our opportunity-structure framework offers valuable insights for designing targetedstrategies to improve the quality of public discourse and promoteinformed and constructive political engagement in diverse societies.
(PDF) Emotionalized Social Media Environments: How Alternative News Media and Populist Actors Drive Angry Reactions. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380628039_Emotionalized_Social_Media_Environments_How_Alternative_News_Media_and_Populist_Actors_Drive_Angry_Reactions#fullTextFileContent [accessed Oct 11 2024].
... While more and more deliberation researchers are concentrating their research efforts in the area of online discussions (Strandberg and Grönlund 2018), contradicting evidence is emerging on the quality of online discussions. While this evidence appears negative in many regards (Anderson et al. 2014;Coe et al. 2014;Sunstein 2002;Ziegele et al. 2020), there are positive exceptions, for example when it comes to discussions in the comments section of online newspapers (Manosevitch and Walker 2009;Rowe 2015). ...
Does the internet facilitate everyday public deliberation? Previous research on this question has largely focused on specific aspects, such as online news media diets or political discussions on social media. However, increasingly complex media environments are composed of different arenas with different respective potential for democracy. While previous work extensively dealt with the quality of political discussion online, it is a necessary but overlooked step, to consider the upstream features of digital infrastructure and usage. Using digital trace data from Germany, this study maps out which websites are relevant for online public discourse, introduces a measure of deliberative potential along six dimensions (information, communication, participation, connectivity, inclusivity and heterogeneity), and explores different types of websites alongside high level usage patterns. Besides a class of mainstream informational hubs, a class of quality information providers that includes most established public broadcasting sites was found. A third class of niche online forums hosts political discussions among more tightly-knit online communities, supporting previous findings of incidental exposure to political content online. While the mainstream information hubs in the sample attract a much larger volume of clicks, users spend relatively more time consuming political information on quality information sites as well as on niche online forums to engage with politics online. This project takes a more holistic perspective of the diverse ecosystem of online deliberation, while presenting a first quantitative exploration of a deliberative system.
... For instance, it comprises numerous toxic acts such as issuing threats, making offensive or sexually explicit remarks [25], engaging in insulting language or mockery [5], perpetrating harassment, bullying, griefing, and trolling [1], as well as exhibiting various antisocial behaviors like hate speech, flaming, and cyberbullying [56]. Such encounters with offensive and toxic textual content within online platforms, exemplified by platforms like Facebook and Twitter, can exert detrimental consequences that may induce emotional distress [86,89] and adverse psychological effects [37], discouraging active participation in online communities [4]. Research indicates that toxic and patronizing language [65] frequently targets members of minority groups [62,83], potentially inciting real-life violence against them [19,63]. ...
Modern Code Review (MCR) is an integral part of the software development process where developers improve product quality through collaborative discussions. Unfortunately, these discussions can sometimes become heated by the presence of inappropriate behaviors such as personal attacks, insults, disrespectful comments, and derogatory conduct, often referred to as incivility. While researchers have extensively explored such incivility in various public domains, our understanding of its causes, consequences, and courses of action remains limited within the professional context of software development, specifically within code review discussions. To bridge this gap, our study draws upon the experience of 171 professional software developers representing diverse development practices across different geographical regions. Our findings reveal that more than half of these developers (56.72%) have encountered instances of workplace incivility, and a substantial portion of that group (83.70%) reported experiencing such incidents at least once a month. We also identified various causes, positive and negative consequences, and potential courses of action for uncivil communication. Moreover, to address the negative aspects of incivility, we propose a model for promoting civility that detects uncivil comments during communication and provides alternative civil suggestions while preserving the original comments' semantics, enabling developers to engage in respectful and constructive discussions. An in-depth analysis of 2K uncivil review comments using eight different evaluation metrics and a manual evaluation suggested that our proposed approach could generate civil alternatives significantly compared to the state-of-the-art politeness and detoxification models. Moreover, a survey involving 36 developers who used our civility model reported its effectiveness in enhancing online development interactions, fostering better relationships, increasing contributor involvement, and expediting development processes. Our research is a pioneer in generating civil alternatives for uncivil discussions in software development, opening new avenues for research in collaboration and communication within the software engineering context.
... Uncivil discourse like offensive, abusive and vicious language, is a significant and obvious component in gender debate [138,140]. It has severe consequences such as polarizing views of issues [6], redirecting focus from real gender issues to sheer antagonism [135], threatening social harmony and gender equality [137], and diminishing citizens' sense of well-being [140]. Nevertheless, previous research has demonstrated that debate not only has negative impacts but also yields positive outcomes, such as improving collective wisdom [84], enhancing communication skills [13], and promoting reflection on complex social problems [43]. ...
... Research has shown that those low-quality discourses can influence readers' perceptions of public opinion toward specific issues (Anderson et al., 2014), their perceptions of news quality (Anderson et al., 2018), and their commenting behavior (Springer et al., 2015). In addition to that, incivility erodes the participants' expectations in the potential for success of public deliberation (Hsueh et al., 2015;Hwang et al., 2014). ...
While early optimists have seen online discussions as potential spaces for deliberation, the reality of many online spaces is characterized by incivility and irrationality. Increasingly, AI tools are considered as a solution to foster deliberative discourse. Against the backdrop of previous research, we show that AI tools for online discussions heavily focus on the deliberative norms of rationality and civility. In the operationalization of those norms for AI tools, the complex deliberative dimensions are simplified, and the focus lies on the detection of argumentative structures in argument mining or verbal markers of supposedly uncivil comments. If the fairness of such tools is considered, the focus lies on data bias and an input–output frame of the problem. We argue that looking beyond bias and analyzing such applications through a sociotechnical frame reveals how they interact with social hierarchies and inequalities, reproducing patterns of exclusion. The current focus on verbal markers of incivility and argument mining risks excluding minority voices and privileges those who have more access to education. Finally, we present a normative argument why examining AI tools for online discourses through a sociotechnical frame is ethically preferable, as ignoring the predicable negative effects we describe would present a form of objectionable indifference.
... A previous study has demonstrated that hate comments have a negative impact on the psychological and physical well-being of members of the target group (e.g., Lee-Won et al., 2017). According to research on political communication, online incivility contributes to divided opinions on an issue (Anderson et al., 2014). Adding to that, the current findings show that hate comments might alter perceptions of polarization through negative emotion. ...
Ethnic integration and national identity have swept Pakistani society since its founding. Traditionally, society is still divided byreligion, race, language,and province. However, the political developments of the past decade have added a new dimension, dividing society along different political lines. Disturbing aspects of the ongoing trend to infuse violence into our political behavior and culture are undermining the foundations of the Pakistani nation and state. The researcher would like to argue that the rhetoric of hateeliminating opponents and promoting a wave of anger, and conflictin the streets of Pakistan is easier said than done. Moreover, thishas degradedand polarized oursociety which is already suffering from a lack of basic amenities likeeducation, health,and employment Overwhelmed, the desire for power at all costs erodes our national values and identity. This article investigates rising trends of hate and polarization in the political speeches of Pakistanistwopoliticians by using athematic analysis and socio-cognitive approach.
Social media is increasingly important for discussing a myriad of topics, including the sometimes contentious topics of science and religion. Although existing work on why people avoid conversations on social media has put forth some specific reasons, little such research has focused on these important topical domains, domains that sociologists have identified as having a complex relationship. Additionally, rarely have such questions been investigated on representative samples that make generalizations possible. This article fills a gap in the literature by analyzing survey responses from a national sample of 2,505 American adults collected in 2023 to explore what reasons people give for avoiding discussions about science and religion on social media. In addition to presenting the relative importance of various reasons for people staying away from such discussions, analyses also consider how sociodemographic characteristics, religiosity, and science literacy relate to whether people avoid such conversations in online environments.
Exposure to cross-cutting viewpoints may not always play the deliberative role it is supposed to. This study uses both panel survey and social media data to examine how disagreement can trigger incivility, including exposure to and expression of incivility, and further elicit emotions and influence polarization. Results from the two-wave panel survey indicate that cross-cutting exposure has a polarizing effect first through promoting exposure to uncivil messages and expression of uncivil opinions, then through negative emotions. Notably, cross-cutting exposure can indirectly reduce polarization by first encouraging expression of uncivil opinions and then eliciting positive emotions, highlighting the importance of active expression. Analysis of data from the Hong Kong-based discussion forum HKDisc demonstrates that cross-cutting exposure is positively related to exposure to uncivil messages, and exposure to and expression of incivility predict polarization regardless of whether positive or negative emotions are detected in the uncivil content. This study provides empirical evidence of the effects of cross-cutting exposure and incivility on polarization at the individual and collective levels.
While analyses of climate change news stories have documented how climate science practitioners and communicators convey knowledge, how audiences receive stories documenting an author’s changed perspective on climate change science is virtually unexplored. This preliminary study qualitatively investigates the content of comments on a New York Times column documenting its author’s conversion from climate change agnostic to acknowledger. Findings suggest this conversion’s reception tends cold—commenters express disapproval of the author’s free-market-solution approach and criticize his tardiness in acknowledging climate change science.
Uncivil online communication is a widely problematized cultural by-product of computer-mediated communication that, however, remains theoretically underexplained. While previous research shows that personal tendency for uncivil communication is partially influenced by individuals’ personality and empathy skills, the factors of inter-individual variation remain largely unknown. The present study examined individuals’ emotion regulation skills as a possible predictor of uncivil communication. Online survey respondents (N = 215) reported if they had engaged in uncivil communication and filled in scales measuring emotion regulation difficulties, use of different emotion regulation strategies, and various individual traits. The results show that emotion regulation difficulties were associated with high levels of online disinhibition. This, in turn, was associated with reports of uncivil communication. The mediation effect was observed even when controlling for personality and empathy. The results suggest that individuals’ emotion regulation difficulties may be an underlying psychological factor behind harmful online communication. These findings call for research and development of means to support emotion regulation in online interactions.
Climate change is a fact. Negative processes are progressing, and experts point to solutions that can reduce the future effects of years of neglect. The problem is global, but not all political actors approach climate policy similarly. After the Donald Trump administration’s spectacular and unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the importance of the long-standing international compromise has diminished. This paper offers an analysis of media reports from 2017–2019 on climate change and climate policy. The study encompasses content from seven global television stations shared from their websites on social media. The author focuses on Facebook as the largest distribution channel for traditional media material in the analysis. The results show that the issue of climate change was one of the most frequently communicated information, but it was not the main topic. Pieces of news content published on the websites of the BBC and CNN were shared most widely. Global warming, the consequences of Donald Trump’s actions, melting glaciers in the Arctic, and greenhouse gas emissions were some of the major issues covered.
Purpose
This study seeks to establish a new framework for categorizing incivility, differentiating between explicit and implicit forms, and to investigate their respective abilities to proliferate and mobilize conversations, along with behavioral outcomes in various social contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing computational techniques, this research analyzed 10,145 protest-related threads from the HK Golden Forum, a prominent online discussion board in Hong Kong.
Findings
Our analysis revealed divergent effects of explicit and implicit incivility on their diffusion, influences on deliberative discussions, and user participation. Explicit incivility was found to impede deliberative conversations, while implicit incivility tended to provoke more responses. Explicit uncivil expressions encouraged the propagation of incivility but reduced the likelihood of individual involvement. In contrast, implicit incivility had a stronger dampening effect on further uncivil comments and achieved greater thread popularity. The results showed strong associations between uncivil expressions and the contextual norms surrounding social movements.
Originality/value
Theoretically, this research introduced a classification of incivility and underscored the importance of differentiating between implicit and explicit incivility by examining their effects on deliberation and engagement. Although previous studies have extensively covered explicit incivility, this study goes further by analyzing implicit incivility and comparing both forms of uncivil discourse in a less-studied context. Methodologically, the study developed a Cantonese dictionary to differentiate between two types of incivility, providing a practical reference for more nuanced analyses. By revealing how varying movement norms moderate the interplay between deliberative and uncivil expressions, the study drew attention to the highly situational nature of incivility.
Purpose
This study examines and compares online incivility on China’s Weibo and the U.S.’s X (Twitter) amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, aiming to unravel how different cultural and geopolitical contexts influence online incivility and identify factors that may influence the occurrence of online incivility in different national contexts.
Design/methodology
This study collected and analyzed over 80,000 social media posts concerning the Russia-Ukraine conflict. By employing machine learning methods and moderation tests, this study compares online incivility in different country contexts.
Findings
Twitter and Weibo show different level of online incivility across eight months in the discussion of Russia-Ukraine war. Conflict frame and negative sentiment both positively predict online incivility on Twitter and Weibo and these two factors both show higher prediction power on Twitter than on Weibo.
Practical implication
This study highlights the necessity for platforms like X (Twitter) and Weibo to refine their moderation systems to address the predictors of online incivility, particularly negative sentiment and conflict framing.
Social implication
This study provides evidence that cultural differences significantly impact online communication patterns and norms. It also finds that non-anonymous users might exhibit more uncivil behavior in politically charged discussions, seeking social approval.
Originality/value
This research is one of the few studies to compare online incivility and its impact factors between China and the United States social media platforms. It shows how cultural differences influence the prevalence and predictors of online incivility and distinguishes the roles of negative sentiment and conflict framing in fostering incivility, with novel findings that challenge conventional beliefs about the impact of user anonymity on online discourse.
The contemporary media environment is often characterized as awash in uncivil and divisive messages. Central to this characterization, are social media, where partisans may engage in uncivil exchanges with outgroup members. The Internet has also become a key source of partisan news content, which is often filled with vitriol and “outrage” toward “the other side.” Using panel survey data from a large and diverse general-population sample of the US, the current study considers the influence of exposure to incivility on social media and online news use on a particularly emotional form of division, affective polarization. Fixed effects regression analyses find no main effects, but significant interaction effects between exposure to incivility via social media and online news use (pro-attitudinal, counter-attitudinal, and nonpartisan online news use) on affective polarization. Exposure to incivility via social media as a form of personal contact, appears to supplement the effect of partisan online news (and vice versa), whether pro-attitudinal or counter-attitudinal, intensifying affective polarization. However, when combined with exposure to incivility on social media, nonpartisan news appears to have an attenuating effect on affective polarization.
Modern Code Review (MCR) is an integral part of the software development process where developers improve product quality through collaborative discussions. Unfortunately, these discussions can sometimes become heated by the presence of inappropriate behaviors such as personal attacks, insults, disrespectful comments, and derogatory conduct, often referred to as incivility. While researchers have extensively explored such incivility in various public domains, our understanding of its causes, consequences, and courses of action remains limited within the professional context of software development, specifically within code review discussions. To bridge this gap, our study draws upon the experience of 171 professional software developers representing diverse development practices across different geographical regions. Our findings reveal that more than half of these developers (56.72%) have encountered instances of workplace incivility, and a substantial portion of that group (83.70%) reported experiencing such incidents at least once a month. We also identified various causes, positive and negative consequences, and potential courses of action for uncivil communication. Moreover, to address the negative aspects of incivility, we propose a model for promoting civility that detects uncivil comments during communication and provides alternative civil suggestions while preserving the original comments’ semantics, enabling developers to engage in respectful and constructive discussions. An in-depth analysis of 2K uncivil review comments using eight different evaluation metrics and a manual evaluation suggested that our proposed approach could generate civil alternatives significantly compared to the state-of-the-art politeness and detoxification models. Moreover, a survey involving 36 developers who used our civility model reported its effectiveness in enhancing online development interactions, fostering better relationships, increasing contributor involvement, and expediting development processes. Our research is a pioneer in generating civil alternatives for uncivil discussions in software development, opening new avenues for research in collaboration and communication within the software engineering context.
Anhand eines Datensatzes von ca. 10.000 inhaltsanalytisch codierten Kommentaren des Telegramkanals der rechtsradikalen Partei Freie Sachen zeigt der Beitrag, dass weniger als 10% der User fast die Hälfte aller Kommentare in den Telegramdiskussionen verfasst. Diese sogenannten Superuser haben also, so kann angenommen werden, einen großen Einfluss auf die Normverständnisse und Meinungsbildung in dieser Telegramgruppe. Dazu wird der Einfluss der Superuser auf den Grad der Inzivilität im Kanal gemessen und Korrelationen zwischen ebenjener Usergruppe mit Aufrufen zu Gewalt, Demokratiefeindlichkeit und der Unterstellung von Lügen geprüft.
Der Beitrag beleuchtet damit die besondere Rolle einer kleinen, aber medial überrepräsentativen Usergruppe, die wesentlich die Meinungsbildung beinflusst haben und somit zur Radikalisierung in Deutschland im Zuge der Coronapandemie beigetragen haben.
The contentious nature of certain forms of climate activism has led to a proliferation of hate comments targeting activists in online news forums. This study examines the ‘Nasty Effect’—the impact of uncivil language—on attitudes towards climate protection news. Specifically, we investigate how various types of hate speech within user comments influence the credibility of articles on climate protection and activism. Employing a between-subject design (7x1), we conducted an online survey in Austria during autumn 2023 (N = 486). Our findings reveal that as the hate speech intensity increased, the perceived credibility of related news articles declined. While overall means did not yield significant differences, individual assessments compared to the control group were significant. Explicit hate speech exhibited a more pronounced negative impact on article credibility. The absence of a significant ‘Nasty Effect’ underscores the intricate nature of this phenomenon and its nuanced influence on public attitudes towards climate protection measures.
This article explains that civil society and civility are associated with one another. It discusses the three elements of civic life which include civility, civicness, and the civic association and shows how these elements are tangled up together and rearranged in everyday citizen action. It explores some common obstacles in linking civility with civicness, particularly the roles played by inequality, diversity, conflict, and discomfort. It also examines how real civic associations manage to overcome these obstacles, making it possible for people to imagine their own everyday relationships in the light of a broader social context.
This study examines online culture by constructing an affective portrait of Internet users. Respondents were recruited through a highly visible advertisement on the Yahoo! search engine, and their sentiments were collected with a Web-based survey instrument using Osgood’s semantic-differential technique. The study had three particularly engaging findings: First, Internet users hold extremely intense and nuanced affective sentiments toward the components of their online world. Second, these sentiments vary with the amount of time Internet users spend online as well as their cumulative years of Internet experience. Third, men and women have slightly different affective responses toward many components of online culture, suggesting that despite the supposedly gender-free nature of the Internet, men and women experience somewhat different online social worlds.
How is public opinion towards nanotechnology likely to evolve? The ‘familiarity hypothesis’ holds that support for nanotechnology will likely grow as awareness of it expands. The basis of this conjecture is opinion polling, which finds that few members of the public claim to know much about nanotechnology, but that those who say they do are substantially more likely to believe its benefits outweigh its risks1, 2, 3, 4. Some researchers, however, have avoided endorsing the familiarity hypothesis, stressing that cognitive heuristics and biases could create anxiety as the public learns more about this novel science5, 6. We conducted an experimental study aimed at determining how members of the public would react to balanced information about nanotechnology risks and benefits. Finding no support for the familiarity hypothesis, the study instead yielded strong evidence that public attitudes are likely to be shaped by psychological dynamics associated with cultural cognition.
The authors tested a novel approach to the conceptualization and measurement of a dimension of scientific literacy, the understanding of scientific and techni-cal terms. Through an analysis of the media's use of scientific and technical terms randomly selected from a scientific dictionary, the authors identified the thirty-one terms most often used in the media. The authors argue that these terms represent what an individual is expected to know within the bounds of normal civic discourse. The measure that was developed therefore represents a conceptualization of a "civically literate" scientific vocabulary that avoids the possible biases that could be associated with a selection of terms based solely on experts' views. Scientific literacy results obtained through the use of the instrument at the pilot-test level are discussed and contrasted with those obtained when using the National Science Foundation's scale, which is the most widely cited public scientific literacy measurement instrument based on a more conventional approach to scientific literacy.
Public authorities are increasingly using information and communication technology (ICT) to engage citizens in the politics, in particular through internet discussion forums. This paper reports findings from a large-scale online randomised controlled trail of 6,009 participants that aims to test the effect of online deliberation on policy preferences. Participants were randomised between four treatment groups and two control groups. All four treatment groups were exposed to the same information and participants were able to post their views. However, in only two of the treatment groups were participants able to read and respond to the postings of others. The analysis uses Compliance Average Causal Effects (CACE) models to show the impact of deliberation. The paper finds that deliberation shifts participants’ views on youth anti-social behaviour, but that participation in online deliberation tends to reinforce extant political inequalities.
How do the statements made by people in online political discussions affect other people's willingness to express their own opinions, or argue for them? And how does group interaction ultimately shape individual opinions? We examine carefully whether and how patterns of group discussion shape (a) individuals’ expressive behavior within those discussions and (b) changes in personal opinions. This research proposes that the argumentative “climate” of group opinion indeed affects postdiscussion opinions, and that a primary mechanism responsible for this effect is an intermediate influence on individual participants’ own expressions during the online discussions. We find support for these propositions in data from a series of 60 online group discussions, involving ordinary citizens, about the tax plans offered by rival U.S. presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000.
This study compares two frequently used operationalizations of understanding: factual knowledge and perceived familiarity. The authors argue that these measurements-which have been used interchangeably in past research-are conceptually distinct and should be treated as such. Using hierarchical linear ordinary least squares regression, this study provides evidence that factual knowledge and perceived familiarity are only slightly correlated and are influenced differently by predicting variables, such as media use and cognitive processing variables. As a result, the use of these measures may result in different assessments of the levels of public understanding, which has important implications for future policy decisions. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Using national survey data, we examine how people use science media, factual knowledge related to nanotechnology, and predispositions such as strength of religious beliefs, to form attitudes about nanotechnology. We show that strength of religious beliefs is negatively related to support for funding of the technol- ogy. Our findings also confirm that science media use plays an important role in shaping positive attitudes toward the technology. Overall public support for funding nanotechnology is not directly related to levels of knowledge among the electorate, but on risk and benefits perceptions and the use of media frames. However, knowledge about the technology does tend to be interpreted through the lens of religious beliefs and therefore indirectly affect levels of support.
Using a mixed-model factorial design, a laboratory experiment (n=153) was conducted to investigate the effects of two features of CMC-synchronicity and civility-on perceptions of online political discussions and discussants. Results indicate that the synchronous versions of the discussions were perceived as more informative and persuasive than the asynchronous versions. Discussants in the uncivil versions of the discussions were perceived as more dominant and less credible. However, neither synchronicity nor civility had a significant impact on people's intentions to participate. The results stand in contrast to those of previous content analysis research, suggesting the importance of studying perceptions in future research. The implications of the findings for online political communication are discussed.
To examine the effects of exchanging treatment information within computer-mediated breast cancer support groups on emotional well-being, and to explore whether this relationship is moderated by health self-efficacy.
Sample: 177 breast cancer patients using an electronic Health (eHealth) program with discussion group. Measure: expression and reception of treatment information; emotional well-being scale (0, 4 months). Analyses: hierarchical regression.
Effects of expression and reception of treatment information on emotional well-being were significantly greater for those who have higher health self-efficacy.
Results conditionally support prior research finding positive effects of treatment information exchanges among breast cancer patients. Such exchanges had a positive impact on emotional well-being for those with higher health self-efficacy, but they had a negative influence for those with lower health self-efficacy.
Given that the association between emotional well-being and exchanging treatment information was moderated by health self-efficacy, clinicians should explain the role of health self-efficacy before encouraging patients to use eHealth systems for treatment exchanges.
Understanding emerging trends in public perceptions of nanomaterials is
critically important for those who regulate risks. A number of surveys
have explored public perceptions of their risks and benefits. In this
paper we meta-analyse these surveys to assess the extent to which the
following four hypotheses derived from previous studies of new
technologies might be said to be valid for nanotechnologies: risk
aversion will prevail over benefit appreciation; an increase in
knowledge will not result in reduced aversion to risks; judgements will
be malleable and subject to persuasion given risk-centric information;
and contextual, psychometric and attitudinal predictors of perceived
risk from prior studies can help anticipate future perceptions of
nanotechnologies. We find that half the public has at least some
familiarity with nanotechnology, and those who perceive greater benefits
outnumber those who perceive greater risks by 3 to 1. However, a large
minority of those surveyed (44%) is unsure, suggesting that risk
judgements are highly malleable. Nanotechnology risk perceptions also
appear to contradict some long-standing findings. In particular,
unfamiliarity with nanotechnology is, contrary to expectations, not
strongly associated with risk aversion and reduced `knowledge deficits'
are correlated with positive perceptions in this early and
controversy-free period. Psychometric variables, trust and affect
continue to drive risk perceptions in this new context, although the
influence of both trust and affect is mediated, even reversed, by
demographic and cultural variables. Given the potential malleability of
perceptions, novel methods for understanding future public responses to
nanotechnologies will need to be developed.
This study uses the contemporary debate over agricultural biotechnology to conceptualize a theoretical model that can be used to explain how citizens reach judgments across a range of science and technology controversies. We report findings from a mail survey of New York State residents that depicts a ‘low information’ public relying heavily on heuristics such as value predispositions, trust, and schema to form an opinion about agricultural biotechnology. Science knowledge does play a modest role, with the news media serving as an important source of informal learning. Contrary to expectations and past research, we do not find any direct effects for news attention on support for agricultural biotechnology. Deference to scientific authority is a central value predisposition shaping support for agricultural biotechnology. Positively correlated with education, deference to scientific authority is the strongest influence on support for agricultural biotechnology in our model. Part of the variable’s influence is direct, but part of it is also indirect, as deference to scientific authority is a key predictor of both trust in the sponsors of biotechnology and generalized reservations about the impacts of science.
The article presents the framework of social amplification of risk which integrates the technical assessment and the social experience of risk. Risk perception research has revealed that contextual factors shape individual risk estimations and evaluations. Identification of these factors, such as voluntariness, personal ability to influence risks, familiarity with the hazard, and catastrophic potential, provides useful information about the elements that individuals consider in constructing their interpretation of risks. In addition, analyses of people's heuristics in making inferences have shed some light on how risk information is generalized and evaluated intuitively. These psychological studies fail to explain, however, why individuals attend to certain characteristics of risks and ignore others. Furthermore, in focusing only on the individual as an information processor, these studies exclude from the analysis the social and cultural variance of risk interpretations. The social amplification framework postulates that the social and economic impacts of an adverse event are determined not only by the direct physical consequences of the event, but by the interaction of psychological, cultural, social, and institutional processes that amplify or attenuate public experience of risk and result in secondary impacts.
Media should be used to educate the public about science-related topics. Scientists must learn to focus on presenting, or framing their messages in ways that make them personally relevant and meaningful to different publics. A typology of frames specific to science-related issues include social progress, economic development/competitiveness, mortality/ethics, scientific/technical uncertainity, public accountability/governance.
The media environment is changing. Today in the United States, the average viewer can choose from hundreds of channels, including several twenty-four hour news channels. News is on cell phones, on iPods, and online; it has become a ubiquitous and unavoidable reality in modern society. The purpose of this book is to examine systematically, how these differences in access and form of media affect political behaviour. Using experiments and new survey data, it shows how changes in the media environment reverberate through the political system, affecting news exposure, political learning, turnout, and voting behavior.
WHEREAS, I had previously called the Florida Legislature into a special session beginning on October 22, 2001 and ending on November 1, 2001 for the purpose of considering reductions to appropriations to deal with the expected decline in revenue growth and other legislation necessary for security and economic stimulus; and WHEREAS, during the special session, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 2B, an appropriations act; and WHEREAS, after consultation with the Legislature, I believe SB 2B has not accomplished all that could be done at this time to fully address the expected decline in revenue growth present after the terrorist acts of September 11; and WHEREAS, after consultation with the Legislature, I have determined and am in agreement with the Legislature that it is in the best interests of the state to call the Legislature back into special session. NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jeb Bush, Governor of the State of Florida, by virtue of the power and authority vested in me by Article III, Section 3(c)(1), Florida Constitution, do hereby proclaim as follows: Section 2. That the Legislature is called into special session for a term starting Tuesday, November 27, 2001 at 9:00AM and ending Thursday, December 6 at 11:59PM: To consider appropriations and reductions to this fiscal year's appropriations that are needed to deal with the anticipated decline in revenue and security and economic stimuli matters important to Florida; and To consider legislation to conform statutes for reductions in appropriations for fiscal year 2001-2002 and reductions that recur in future fiscal years and appropriations for security and economic stimuli, and to provide flexibility in order to shift money within the appropriated funds during fiscal year 2001-2002; and To consider Proposed Committee Bill FRC 01-18 from the 2001 Session B dealing with the expansion of the Comptroller's authority to borrow from the Budget Stabilization Fund on an emergency basis; and To consider changing Chapter 2001-225 1 Laws of Florida dealing with the tax on intangibles. Section 3. Prayer The following prayer was offered by the Honorable Randy John Ball: Father, we are a needy people, and in many ways, we do not see or acknowledge our need until times of trouble; but then, You are there. And so we come to You in this time of Thanksgiving to thank You for Your all-sufficiency; for life, for freedom, for health, for the honor of shepherding these 16 million people, and most of all for the fact that every willing heart can find You. We pray for Your mercy upon our country, we pray for the peace of Israel. In Your holy and powerful name. Amen.
In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally. With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming. In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions. Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth. "Genesis 2:15," said Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs, citing a passage that serves as the justification for the effort: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." "We believe that we have a rightful responsibility for what the Bible itself challenges," Mr. Cizik said. "Working the land and caring for it go hand in hand. That's why I think, and say unapologetically, that we ought to be able to bring to the debate a new voice." By themselves, environmental groups have made scant progress on global warming legislation in Congress, beyond a nonbinding Senate resolution last summer that recommends a program of mandatory controls on gases that cause global warming. Officials with the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council said they welcomed the added muscle evangelicals could bring to their cause. But they agreed that it remained uncertain how much difference it could make. A major obstacle to any measure that would address global warming is Senator James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who is chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an evangelical himself, but a skeptic of climate change caused by human activities.
The rise of television as Americans' primary news source has often been decried as a blight on representative democracy. In this article the authors outline three interpretations of media coverage of presidential campaigns. The authors dismiss the first of these (the "vast wasteland" interpretation) because it assumes, contrary to much existing evidence, that there is a fundamental difference between television and the print media in campaign coverage. The authors then undertake a content analysis of newspaper coverage of the presidential campaigns of 1888,1908, 1928, 1948, 1968, and 1988 as a test of the two remaining interpretations. According to the "videostyle" interpretation, television has revolutionized presidential campaigns and the way campaigns are covered. By contrast, the "the more things change ... " interpretation holds that, while television may have altered the style of presidential campaigns, it has not changed the substance of campaign coverage, which focused on hoopla and the horse race rather than on serious issues long before the arrival of television. The content analysis indicates some changes during the post-World-War-II era that are consistent with the "videostyle" interpretation, but over the full course of the last century these changes have been of quite a limited scope, consistent with the "the more things change ... " interpretation.
The proponents of cyberspace promise that online discourse will increase political participation and pave the road for a democratic utopia. This article explores the potential for civil discourse in cyberspace by examining the level of civility in 287 discussion threads in political newsgroups. While scholars often use civility and politeness interchangeably, this study argues that this conflation ignores the democratic merit of robust and heated discussion. Therefore, civility was defined in a broader sense, by identifying as civil behaviors that enhance democratic conversation. In support of this distinction, the study results revealed that most messages posted on political newsgroups were civil, and further suggested that because the absence of face-to-face communication fostered more heated discussion, cyberspace might actually promote Lyotard’s vision of democratic emancipation through disagreement and anarchy (Lyotard, 1984). Thus, this study supported the internet’s potential to revive the public sphere, provided that greater diversity and volume of discussion is present.
Although antisocial behaviour has become an issue of political and policy concern, social science lacks basic information on such events. This article explores one aspect of such everyday incivility - how people react emotionally and behaviourally to the badly behaved stranger. Mainstream criminology, as well as the social theory of Goffman and Bauman, is oriented around a fear/avoidance vision. This dominant paradigm is unnecessarily restrictive on intellectual inquiry. A raft of other options including anger/intervention; disgust/aversion and indifference/do nothing are analytically reconstructed from the classical social theory of Durkheim, Elias and Simmel. These various models are applied to incidents coded from the transcripts of the Melbourne Everyday Incivility Project. The results show that emotions and behaviours tend to pair up as predicted. Fear/avoidance, however, is a relatively uncommon response to incivil encounters. Anger/intervention and indifference/do nothing are more frequent. The former is especially associated with events where the respondent is a ‘victim’, and the latter with those where the respondent is an onlooker. These findings suggest the limitations of current criminological research in areas related to incivility and fear of crime, and have implications for collective efficacy, social capital and broken windows criminology.
From the Publisher:Is the Internet poised to replace television as the central means of political communication? Will the advent of computer communication create a new era of citizen activism? Will the Internet ultimately lend itself more to political accountability and access or to exclusion and extremism? Is cyberspace truly the domain of the ideological right? In answering these questions, "Cyberpolitics" goes beyond the hype to analyze the content of political discussion on the Internet and to see how the Internet is being used politically. Empirical research translated into dozens of graphically compelling figures and tables illuminates for the first time Internet characteristics heretofore only speculated about: Who are the "cybercitizens" using the Internet, how do they participate in the political process, and who uses the Internet most effectively to accomplish political ends? The bottom line the authors reach should be reassuring to Internet utopians and dystopians alike: As the Internet grows, it will change the nature of political action, discourse, and effect less than it will itself be changed by politics. Along the way, we learn a lot about politics on the Internet and off-in the U.S. and around the world; left, right, and center.Author Biography: Kevin A. Hill is assistant professor of political science at Florida International University. John E. Hughes is assistant professor of political science at Monmouth University.
Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival based on incidence data from the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics. A total of 1,660,290 new cancer cases and 580,350 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States in 2013. During the most recent 5 years for which there are data (2005-2009), delay-adjusted cancer incidence rates declined slightly in men (by 0.6% per year) and were stable in women, while cancer death rates decreased by 1.8% per year in men and by 1.5% per year in women. Overall, cancer death rates have declined 20% from their peak in 1991 (215.1 per 100,000 population) to 2009 (173.1 per 100,000 population). Death rates continue to decline for all 4 major cancer sites (lung, colorectum, breast, and prostate). Over the past 10 years of data (2000-2009), the largest annual declines in death rates were for chronic myeloid leukemia (8.4%), cancers of the stomach (3.1%) and colorectum (3.0%), and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (3.0%). The reduction in overall cancer death rates since 1990 in men and 1991 in women translates to the avoidance of approximately 1.18 million deaths from cancer, with 152,900 of these deaths averted in 2009 alone. Further progress can be accelerated by applying existing cancer control knowledge across all segments of the population, with an emphasis on those groups in the lowest socioeconomic bracket and other underserved populations. CA Cancer J Clin 2013;. © 2013 American Cancer Society.
How do Americans acquire the impression that their political foes have some understandable basis for their views, and thus represent a legitimate opposition? How do they come to believe that reasonable people may disagree on any given political controversy? Given that few people talk regularly to those of opposing perspectives, some theorize that mass media, and television in particular, serve as an important source of exposure to the rationales for oppositional views. A series of experimental studies suggests that television does, indeed, have the capacity to encourage greater awareness of oppositional perspectives. However, common characteristics of televised political discourse—incivility and close-up camera perspectives—cause audiences to view oppositional perspectives as less legitimate than they would have otherwise. I discuss the broader implications of these findings for assessments of the impact of television on the political process, and for the perspective that televised political discourse provides on oppositional political views.
The internet and its surrounding technologies hold the promise of reviving the public sphere; however, several aspects of these new technologies simultaneously curtail and augment that potential. First, the data storage and retrieval capabilities of internet-based technologies infuse political discussion with information otherwise unavailable. At the same time, information access inequalities and new media literacy compromise the representativeness of the virtual sphere. Second, internet-based technologies enable discussion between people on far sides of the globe, but also frequently fragmentize political discourse. Third, given the patterns of global capitalism, it is possible that internet-based technologies will adapt themselves to the current political culture, rather than create a new one. The internet and related technologies have created a new public space for politically oriented conversation; whether this public space transcends to a public sphere is not up to the technology itself.
In this article the acceptability of risk is related to the moral value of risky actions. Four widely different groups of subjects (clergy, MBA students, prison inmates and pregnant women) judged 20 individual and 20 collective acts with reference to acceptability of risk, moral value, and value and probability of negative and positive consequences. They also rated their current mood. Acceptability of risks was most strongly related to moral value, which thus was found to be an important determiner of acceptability of risk. A depressed mood was associated with a lenient attitude to risks. Societal acts were more negatively evaluated than individual acts. There was a strong positive correlation between values and probabilities of outcomes, both positive and negative.
oes incivility in political discourse have adverse effects on public regard for politics? If so, why? In this study we present a theory suggesting that when viewers are exposed to televised political disagreement,itoftenviolateswell-establishedface-to-facesocialnormsforthepoliteexpression ofopposingviews.Asaresult,incivilityinpublicdiscourseadverselyaffectstrustingovernment.Drawing on three laboratory experiments, we find that televised presentations of political differences of opinion do not, in and of themselves, harm attitudes toward politics and politicians. However, political trust is adversely affected by levels of incivility in these exchanges. Our findings suggest that the format of much political television effectively promotes viewer interest, but at the expense of political trust.
The social experience of risk is not confined to the technical definition of risk, i.e., the product of probability and magnitude. What human beings perceive as threats to their well-being is influenced by their values, attitudes, social influences, and cultural identity. This article introduces the framework of social amplification of risk, which integrates the technical assessment and the social experience of risk. This viewpoint proposes that events pertaining to hazards interact with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural processes in ways that can heighten or attenuate individual and social perceptions of risk and shape risk behavior. An empirical study investigated the functional relationships among five sets of variables that enter into the amplification process: physical consequences, the amount of press coverage, individual layperson perceptions, public responses, and the socioeconomic and political impacts. It found that perceptions and social responses are more strongly related to exposure to risk than to its magnitude.
One of the most perplexing problems in risk analysis is why some relatively minor risks or risk events, as assessed by technical experts, often elicit strong public concerns and result in substantial impacts upon society and economy. This article sets forth a conceptual framework that seeks to link systematically the technical assessment of risk with psychological, sociological, and cultural perspectives of risk perception and risk-related behavior. The main thesis is that hazards interact with psychological, social, institutional, and cultural processes in ways that may amplify or attenuate public responses to the risk or risk event. A structural description of the social amplification of risk is now possible. Amplification occurs at two stages: in the transfer of information about the risk, and in the response mechanisms of society. Signals about risk are processed by individual and social amplification stations, including the scientist who communicates the risk assessment, the news media, cultural groups, interpersonal networks, and others. Key steps of amplifications can be identified at each stage. The amplified risk leads to behavioral responses, which, in turn, result in secondary impacts. Models are presented that portray the elements and linkages in the proposed conceptual framework.
We report findings from a national telephone survey on levels of knowledge about and attitudes toward nanotechnology that
demonstrate how people make decisions about emerging technologies. Our findings confirm previous research that suggests that
people form opinions and attitudes even in the absence of relevant scientific or policy-related information. In fact, our
data show that cognitive shortcuts or heuristics – often provided by mass media – are currently a key factor in influencing
how the public thinks about nanotechnology and about its risks and benefits, and in determining the level of support among
the public for further funding for research in this area.
Public opinion research on nanotechnology has primarily focused on judgments of abstract risks and benefits, rather than attitudes toward specific applications. This approach will be less useful as nanotechnology morphs from a scientific breakthrough into an enabling technology whose impacts on people’s lives come in the form of concrete applications in specific areas. This study examines the mental connections or associations US citizens have with nanotechnology (e.g. the extent to which people associate nanotechnology with the medical field, the military, consumer products, etc.), and how these associations moderate the influences of risk and benefit perceptions on attitudes toward nanotechnology. Our results suggest that the assumption that risk perceptions shape overall attitudes toward emerging technologies is simplistic. Rather, individuals who associate nanotech with particular areas of application, such as the medical field, take risk perceptions much more into account when forming attitudes than respondents who do not make these mental connections.
Previous research suggests both cognitive and affective variables can impact how the public thinks about new scientific developments such as nanotechnology. Most studies have not explored the origins of these variables or their simultaneous, interactive influences on public opinion. Using national telephone survey data (N=706), we examine the pathways between different types of media use and attitudes toward nanotechnology, particularly potential mediating roles of nanotechnology knowledge and deference toward scientific authority. People relying on newspapers and the Internet for science information report higher levels Of nanotechnology knowledge, while respondents using science TV showed higher levels of deference toward scientific authority.
Probes incivility among U.S. lawmakers, demonstrating why institutional reform will not solve gridlock in Washington
The Reasoning Voter is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaignsâCarter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984âto arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaigns do matter. "Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."âDavid S. Broder, The Washington Post
Technology has had a great impact on changes in life-style during the past. Urgent requirements concerning alimentation, health care, traffic and communication have been met by means of technology. The physical, sensory and intelligent strength of man have been multiplied by the utilization of natural resources, and the average lifetime has been increased considerably. However, technology is always combined with undesired side-effects, such as environmental pollution and cost explosion, as long as it has to meet the increasing requirements of mankind. Physicists and engineers were paying attention to these side-effects long before the so-called critical intelligentsia appeared on the scene. It is noteworthy that, especially in Germany, the natural sciences could never be integrated into culture. As a result of this, many scholars argue against technology without presenting solutions for the actual problems that are at present created by the ever-increasing numbers of people in the world and their high demands. Only science and technology can help to overcome these difficulties if they are applied in a reasonable way.
I review existing knowledge, unanswered questions, and new directions in research on stress, coping resource, coping strategies, and social support processes. New directions in research on stressors include examining the differing impacts of stress across a range of physical and mental health outcomes, the "carry-overs" of stress from one role domain or stage of life into another, the benefits derived from negative experiences, and the determinants of the meaning of stressors. Although a sense of personal control and perceived social support influence health and mental health both directly and as stress buffers, the theoretical mechanisms through which they do so still require elaboration and testing. New work suggests that coping flexibility and structural constraints on individuals' coping efforts may be important to pursue. Promising new directions in social support research include studies of the negative effects of social relationships and of support giving, mutual coping and support-giving dynamics, optimal "matches" between individuals' needs and support received, and properties of groups which can provide a sense of social support. Qualitative comparative analysis, optimal matching analysis, and event-structure analysis are new techniques which may help advance research in these broad topic areas. To enhance the effectiveness of coping and social support interventions, intervening mechanisms need to be better understood. Nevertheless, the policy implications of stress research are clear and are important given current interest in health care reform in the United States.
Emotions are action dispositions--states of vigilant readiness that vary widely in reported affect, physiology, and behavior. They are driven, however, by only 2 opponent motivational systems, appetitive and aversive--subcortical circuits that mediate reactions to primary reinforcers. Using a large emotional picture library, reliable affective psychophysiologies are shown, defined by the judged valence (appetitive/pleasant or aversive/unpleasant) and arousal of picture percepts. Picture-evoked affects also modulate responses to independently presented startle probe stimuli. In other words, they potentiate startle reflexes during unpleasant pictures and inhibit them during pleasant pictures, and both effects are augmented by high picture arousal. Implications are elucidated for research in basic emotions, psychopathology, and theories of orienting and defense. Conclusions highlight both the approach's constraints and promising paths for future study.
Use of the Internet is common among patients with cancer and their companions. However, little is known about patterns of use of print or telephone-based resources amidst growing Internet utilization, nor is it known whether different types of information are sought from electronic compared with print media. It is not clear as to whether patients and their companions differ in their patterns of content seeking.
A survey was developed to evaluate the use of electronic and nonelectronic informational resources by patients and their companions. During a 10-week period, this questionnaire was administered to 443 outpatients and 124 paired companions attending an urban academic cancer center.
In this cohort, 64% of patients and 76% of companions were computer owners, with home Internet access indicated by 58% and 68%, respectively. Use of the Internet to obtain cancer-related information was reported by 44% of patients and 60% of companions. Print resources were used by 79% of patients and 83% of companions, with telephone resources used by 22% and 23%, respectively. The majority of Internet users also read print content (85%), whereas one-half of print users did not access data electronically (52%). Topic areas sought via print and the Internet were similar, with the exception of nutrition-related information, which was more commonly sought in print texts. There was a high rate of concordance between patient and companion use of both electronic and nonelectronic resources.
Despite recent publicity and scrutiny focusing on the quality of Internet health care content, print products remain the most common source of information sought by patients with cancer. Future investigation should focus on the quality of print products used by patients.