Patrick Weber

Effects of civility and reasoning in user comments on perceived journalistic quality

Journalists are increasingly concerned that offensive and banal user comments on news websites might alienate readers and damage quality perceptions. To explore such presumed effects, we investigated the impact of civility and reasoning (and lack thereof) in user comments on perceptions of journalistic quality. An experiment revealed that unreasoned comments decrease an article’s perceived informational quality, but only in unknown news brands. Incivility in comments had an unconditionally negative effect on the perceived formal quality of an article. Neither civility nor reasoning improved the assessments of journalistic quality, as compared to a comment-free version. On the contrary, we observed a trend showing that the mere presence of comments deteriorates the perceived quality of an article.

Why User Comments Affect the Perceived Quality of Journalistic Content

User comments on news websites are frequently uncivil and are not supported by reasoned argumentation. These characteristics can have negative effects on the perceived quality of the commented-on journalistic content, yet to date, it remains unclear how such effects occur. We propose three mechanisms that assume that the effect of user comments depends on how deliberately and elaborately the quality of the commented-on news item is judged. We conducted an experiment (N = 633) in which we varied the level of civility and reasoning in the comments accompanying a news article and the brand of the news website on which it was presented. The results showed that a lack of reasoning in the comments decreased the perceived quality of the news item irrespective of brand awareness, but only with high elaboration during judgment. Incivility in the comments decreased the perceived quality of the journalistic content, but only with low elaboration, and only with an unknown news brand. We discuss different psychological mechanisms that can explain this pattern of effects.

Werbung - das (un)bekannte Wesen

Werbung ist ein facettenreiches Phanomen in der Forschung sowie in der Praxis, das ebenso vielseitig definiert werden kann. Damit fallt es schwer, Werbung klar von anderen geplanten Kommunikationsprozessen abzugrenzen. Die Entwicklung der Werbung hangt sowohl mit der Entwicklung der industriellen Massenproduktion und des Massenkonsums als auch mit der Entwicklung der Massenmedien zusammen. Das vorliegende Handbuch soll einerseits Werbung konkret genug fassen, um nicht beliebige Beitrage zu Kommunikationsangeboten zu bundeln und andererseits offen genug sein, um alle relevanten Entwicklungen aufgreifen zu konnen. Es diskutiert Werbung im Rahmen der Strukturen und Rahmenbedingungen von Werbekommunikation, der Bedingungen der Produktion und Distribution sowie der Nutzung und Wirkung.