Twitter versus Facebook: Comparing incivility,impoliteness,and deliberative attributes

Abstract

Using two quantitative methods, this study sought to understand whether user-generated posts would vary in frequency of incivility, impoliteness, and deliberative attributes on Twitter versus Facebook. A quantitative content analysis (N = 1458) revealed that posts responding to the White House’s tweets were significantly more uncivil and impolite and less deliberative than responses to White House Facebook posts. Also, comments on posts that concerned sensitive topics (such as same-sex marriage) were more uncivil, impolite, and deliberative than comments regarding less sensitive topics (such as technology). An experiment (N = 198) showed that people were more deliberative when responding to White House Facebook posts, compared with White House tweets, but no differences were found for incivility and impoliteness. Results suggest that both the varying affordances of the two platforms and the fact that the two sites may attract different types of people might explain these results.

Keywords

Impoliteness incivility public deliberation social media

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