The deliberative influence of comment section structure

First Published July 4, 2017 Research Article

Authors

The University of Alabama, USA
by this author
,
Purdue University, USA
by this author
,
The University of Texas at Austin, USA
by this author
First Published Online: July 4, 2017

Online news comment sections are a ubiquitous presence across media outlets. Although research has assessed both the content and effects of these comment spaces, little is known about how the structure of comment spaces influences news users’ online commentary. As democratic theorists argue, the structure of a communicative space can influence its deliberative quality. We conducted two separate experiments to determine how news comment section structure affects online commentary. We found that both comment section structure and the structure of pre-comment information enhanced both the quantity of comment engagement and its deliberative quality.

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