scholarly journals The Effects of User Comments on Science News Engagement

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (CSCW1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Spencer Williams ◽  
Gary Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Marlene Kunst

Abstract. Comments sections under news articles have become popular spaces for audience members to oppose the mainstream media’s perspective on political issues by expressing alternative views. This kind of challenge to mainstream discourses is a necessary element of proper deliberation. However, due to heuristic information processing and the public concern about disinformation online, readers of comments sections may be inherently skeptical about user comments that counter the views of mainstream media. Consequently, commenters with alternative views may participate in discussions from a position of disadvantage because their contributions are scrutinized particularly critically. Nevertheless, this effect has hitherto not been empirically established. To address this gap, a multifactorial, between-subjects experimental study ( N = 166) was conducted that investigated how participants assess the credibility and argument quality of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. The findings revealed that media-dissonant user comments are, indeed, disadvantaged in online discussions, as they are assessed as less credible and more poorly argued than media-congruent user comments. Moreover, the findings showed that the higher the participants’ level of media trust, the worse the assessment of media-dissonant user comments relative to media-congruent user comments. Normative implications and avenues for future research are discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Stephen Pihlaja

Using membership categorization analysis, this article investigates membership categories in a YouTube video made by an Evangelical Christian in which he differentiates between “saved” and “religious” users. Analysis will take a discourse-centred, multimodal approach grounded in longitudinal observation, using analysis of video discourse to instruct analysis of video images and user comments. Findings will show that categorization is accomplished by using recognized categories with ambiguous descriptions of category-bound activities that include metaphors, such as “being hungry for God” and not “hanging out with atheists.” These categories are recognized by commenters on the video, but the category bound activities applied to the category members are disputed. Findings will also show that scriptural reference plays an important role in categorization in the video, drawing on direct Bible quotes as well as paraphrases of key passages.


Author(s):  
Anna Udelkina

This article is devoted to the study of the multimedia environment of the polemic discourse in German media with its diverse formats of impact on the audience and the actively developing internal dynamics of texts. If at the end of the XXth century the specifics of German media were the use of the Internet site as one of the possibilities to present copies of newspapers and magazines in electronic form, today we can speak of modified, hybrid Internet versions of printed publications that do not just create websites on the Internet that duplicate their main activity, but also combines the features of the traditional press and features of the functioning of texts on the Internet. The transition from linear, monomedia broadcasting platforms to discrete, multimedia ones has a significant impact on the process of creating, designing and placing modern polemics. Texts of articles and user comments are considered in the article as tmaterialization of the polemic discourse in the media. Polemic texts are formed on the basis of intertextual structures and have a hypertext nature. The use of multimedia tools (a variety of fonts, graphics, animation, photo, video and sound) in the text of the article allows the author not only to expand the amount of information provided, but also to qualitatively supplement its content through inline inclusions tn the text, to express the meaning of information by referring to verbal and non-verbal means; to provide a visual and figurative presentation of information (graphs, charts, tables), to attract attention and influence the audience, as well as to provide readers with the opportunity to participate in information exchange.


Science ◽  
1933 ◽  
Vol 77 (2005) ◽  
pp. 8-10
Keyword(s):  

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