Re: Does Civility Matter in the Blogosphere? Examining the
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Design and procedure
The study used a 2 (civil vs. uncivil tone) x 2 (ideological congruence) between-subjects design, where civility of tone was manipulated and ideological congruence was measured based on whether or not participants viewed messages that “matched” their political ideology. Respondents read a news story about global climate change policy, which was written to emulate journalistic practice by providing a balanced summary of two positions on climate change policy. The article described both a liberal policy position for addressing climate change, endorsing mandatory caps on emissions, as well as a contrasting conservative position, supporting voluntary emissions reductions and technological innovation by industry (see Appendix 1 for full text of the news story). The news story was attributed to the Associated Press. The content of the news story remained consistent across all experimental conditions.
In order to replicate conditions under which mainstream news content would be reproduced in full, but also co-located with opinionated information content, we embedded the policy news story in a post on a fictitious web blog authored by a blogger named “Curt.” The blog commentary was written to critique either the conservative or liberal policy positions as represented in the news story. Therefore, the ideological incongruence condition was created by comparing participants’ reported political party identifications with the ideology of the blogger’s critique. Participants who reported Democrat affiliation and viewed blogger commentary critiquing the conservative position on global warming policy were in the ideologically congruent condition, as were Republican participants who read blog critiques of liberal policy. Republicans who read critiques of the conservative position and Democrats who viewed critiques of the liberal position were considered to be in the ideologically incongruent condition. Participants who reported either “Independent” affiliation or affiliation with a third party were excluded from the analysis.
To produce the tone conditions, we manipulated whether the blogger’s commentary included civil or uncivil references to the other side of the debate (Brooks & Geer, 2007). In the civil condition, the critique of the news story maintained a respectful tone (i.e., “Democrats often criticize Bush for renouncing the Kyoto Protocol, but they fail to recognize that most of the signing nations have failed to live up to the promises of the accord.”). In the uncivil condition, while the argument remained the same, the blogger used derogatory terms and insulting language when referring to opponents of the blogger’s position (i.e., “Democrat whiners often criticize Bush for renouncing the Kyoto Protocol, but they can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that most of the signing nations have failed to live up to the misguided promises of the accord.”).
The study used a 2 (civil vs. uncivil tone) x 2 (ideological congruence) between-subjects design, where civility of tone was manipulated and ideological congruence was measured based on whether or not participants viewed messages that “matched” their political ideology. Respondents read a news story about global climate change policy, which was written to emulate journalistic practice by providing a balanced summary of two positions on climate change policy. The article described both a liberal policy position for addressing climate change, endorsing mandatory caps on emissions, as well as a contrasting conservative position, supporting voluntary emissions reductions and technological innovation by industry (see Appendix 1 for full text of the news story). The news story was attributed to the Associated Press. The content of the news story remained consistent across all experimental conditions.
In order to replicate conditions under which mainstream news content would be reproduced in full, but also co-located with opinionated information content, we embedded the policy news story in a post on a fictitious web blog authored by a blogger named “Curt.” The blog commentary was written to critique either the conservative or liberal policy positions as represented in the news story. Therefore, the ideological incongruence condition was created by comparing participants’ reported political party identifications with the ideology of the blogger’s critique. Participants who reported Democrat affiliation and viewed blogger commentary critiquing the conservative position on global warming policy were in the ideologically congruent condition, as were Republican participants who read blog critiques of liberal policy. Republicans who read critiques of the conservative position and Democrats who viewed critiques of the liberal position were considered to be in the ideologically incongruent condition. Participants who reported either “Independent” affiliation or affiliation with a third party were excluded from the analysis.
To produce the tone conditions, we manipulated whether the blogger’s commentary included civil or uncivil references to the other side of the debate (Brooks & Geer, 2007). In the civil condition, the critique of the news story maintained a respectful tone (i.e., “Democrats often criticize Bush for renouncing the Kyoto Protocol, but they fail to recognize that most of the signing nations have failed to live up to the promises of the accord.”). In the uncivil condition, while the argument remained the same, the blogger used derogatory terms and insulting language when referring to opponents of the blogger’s position (i.e., “Democrat whiners often criticize Bush for renouncing the Kyoto Protocol, but they can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that most of the signing nations have failed to live up to the misguided promises of the accord.”).