Abstract

This study examines the effect that uncivil news engagement comments that correct misinformation on a news story posted on Facebook have on newsreaders’ perceptions and attitudes. This study also considers whether social reactions, such as a “like” or an “angry” posted on correcting comments, will influence newsreaders’ perceptions and attitudes. Results from a survey experiment (N = 873) in the United States show that if comments that correct misinformation are uncivil, they led newsreaders to perceive the correcting comments and the commenters who posted them less favourably, although no effects on perceptions of the credibility of the news story itself were found. In addition, we found that uncivil correcting comments increased dislike for the political out-group in some instances unless they were marked with an “angry” social reaction. The “angry” reaction reversed the effect of the incivility, leading to decreased dislike for the out-group. Our findings advance digital journalism studies related to news engagement by showing the effects of incivility in corrections of misinformation and explaining how social reactions may alter the effect of these corrections.

摘要

本研究考察了纠正 Facebook 上发布的新闻报道中的错误信息的不文明的新闻参与评论对新闻阅读者的看法和态度的影响。这项研究还考虑了社会反应，例如在纠正评论时发布的“喜欢”或“愤怒”，是否会影响新闻阅读者的看法和态度。调查实验的结果 ( N = 873）在美国表明，如果纠正错误信息的评论是不文明的，它们会导致新闻阅读者对纠正性评论和发表评论的评论者的看法不太好，尽管没有发现对新闻故事本身可信度的看法产生影响。此外，我们发现在某些情况下，不文明的纠正评论会增加对政治外群体的厌恶，除非它们被标记为“愤怒”的社会反应。“愤怒”的反应逆转了不文明的影响，导致对外群体的厌恶减少。我们的研究结果通过展示不文明行为在纠正错误信息方面的影响并解释社会反应如何改变这些纠正的效果，推进了与新闻参与相关的数字新闻研究。