Personal and Public Levels of Political Incivility

Authors

  • Ashley Muddiman University of Kansas

Keywords:

incivility, partisanship, politics, experiments

Abstract

As interest in political incivility has grown, scholarly conceptualizations of incivility have diverged, often centering on politeness theory or deliberative theory, but rarely on both. The current project addresses this problem by empirically investigating a two-dimensional incivility model. Two experiments test individuals’ perceptions of uncivil interactions among political figures, finding that (a) personal-level incivility (impoliteness) and public-level incivility (lack of deliberativeness and reciprocity) are distinct concepts, (b) personal-level incivility is perceived as more uncivil than public-level incivility, and (c) political figures from a person’s own political party are perceived as more civil than others. Future researchers can use this two-dimensional model to bring coherence to the incivility literature and more thoroughly investigate the effects of public-level incivility.

Author Biography

Ashley Muddiman, University of Kansas

Ashley Muddiman (PhD, The University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas. She also is a Faculty Research Associate with the Engaging News Project, which is housed in the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research explores political media effects, specifically those related to political incivility. University of Kansas1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7574(785) 864-4098

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Published

2017-08-14

Issue

Vol. 11 (2017)

Section

Articles

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