Users’ Political Motivations in Comment Sections on News Sites

Authors

  • Patrick Zerrer Universität Bremen - Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)
  • Ines Engelmann Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena - Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft

Keywords:

user comments, political participation, political motivations, digitally networked participation, social identity model of collective action

Abstract

The Internet has transformed individual political participation. Based on our theoretical framework, we assume that user comments can be regarded as forms of political participation from which conclusions can be drawn about users’ political motivations such as identity, emotions, morality, and agency. In a manual quantitative content analysis of 300 user comments of the comment sections of four German news sites, we identified types of user comments on the basis of perceptible political motivations. A subsequent cluster analysis shows that the identified motivations occur in combination. We classify six different clusters of user comments based on these motivations: moral-friendly, objective, emotional-moral believing, angry-left-liberal, angry-conservative, and angry-lone-fighter. Further analyses of motivations and types of user comments by left- and right-leaning news sites reveal clear differences in the occurrence of negative emotions, individual and collective morality, and agency. The angry-conservative and angry-lone-fighter clearly predominate on right-leaning media, and emotional-moral believing and angry-left-liberal on left-leaning media.

Author Biographies

Patrick Zerrer, Universität Bremen - Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI)

Patrick Zerrer is a research assistant at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen. His research interests are particularly in the area of political online communication, news & media usage, and political (digital) participation.

Ines Engelmann, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena - Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft

Ines Engelmann is a professor of communication studies with a focus on empirical methods at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. Her research focuses on internet public spheres, in particular discussion sections on news websites, journalistic media content and its conditions of production, as well as audience use and participation.

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Published

2022-06-13

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Section

Articles