It's the aggression, stupid!: An examination of commenters' motives for using incivility in online political discussions

Abstract

Incivility in online political discussions is an urgent problem for society as it can have detrimental effects on democratic discourse. However, knowledge about people's inherent motives for behaving in an uncivil way is scarce. To close this gap, this online study employed a mixed-methods approach and surveyed 115 discussion commenters to explore their motives for communicating in an uncivil manner. Qualitative analyses revealed that in individual cases, people's motives for uncivil commenting can be very complex, and differ between distinct forms of incivility. Participants also indicated that they often try to counteract other comments. In contrast, quantitative data revealed that motives related to aggression were the key drivers for frequent uncivil commenting behavior among different forms of incivility. In sum, the study demonstrated that although aggressive motives are not the only predictors of uncivil commenting, they still seem to be a key factor for an individual's tendency to write uncivil comments.