Political Gendertrolling

Abstract

Online political gendertrolling is widespread, and while research shows that women are trolled more often than men, and that men troll more often than women, it is unclear if there is a difference in political gendertrolling between same- and cross-gender pairs of perpetrator-target. To address this gap, this study first examines the extent and style of gendertrolling. Then, it tests for variations based on the perpetrator’s and target’s gender and the target’s political affiliation. Using a two-by-two factorial design, with four perpetrator-target gender pairs (Women/Women, Women/Men, Men/Women, Men/Men), we performed a content analysis of 4,000 trolling comments on 40 Facebook posts that were made by 20 politicians (Men/Women, Democrats/Republicans). We found significant main and interaction effects in gendertrolling style based on the perpetrator’s and target’s genders and the target’s political affiliation. Women’s trolling styles toward men differed from the dominant trolling style, and regardless of perpetrator gender, the gendertrolling style towards women Democrats differed from the style used towards the other targets. However, we found no significant main or interaction effects in the extent of political gendertrolling in any of the four gender conditions, nor based on target’s political affiliation. Contributing to gendertrolling literature, this paper provides evidence of the complex relationships between same- and cross-gender perpetrator-target pairs.