An Examination of Verbal Aggression in Politically-Motivated Digital Discourse

Abstract

Verbal aggression in digital discourse has emerged as a substantial focus of interest for scholars wishing to examine how conflicts begin, unfold and end on Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and WhatsApp. However, despite all the scholarly attention that Facebook has received since its origin, verbal aggression on Facebook is still relatively under-researched. This paper examines verbal aggression online in the political discourse of Congo-Brazzaville Facebook users. More specifically, quantitative along with qualitative analyses of a dataset of 9,330 Facebook comments were jointly carried out. One critical finding is that explicit aggressive comments are overwhelmingly pervasive and on the increase, pointing to the conclusion that historical, social, sociolinguistic, and political factors are to a larger extent instigators of verbal aggression on Facebook. Furthermore, users employ different strategies to express or intensify verbal aggression, favoring explicit expressions of aggression such as insult and abuse over others like teasing.