The potential of online discussion for political engagement, expression of opinions, and participation has been lauded by both scholars and journalism practitioners, but accusations of incivility within comment forums abound. This study utilized a quantitative content analysis to examine and compare levels of incivility within virtual discussion forums of the most widely read mainstream news outlets and political blogs. A random sample of 851 user-generated comments was coded for dimensions of incivility and direction of incivility. As predicted, results showed significantly more instances of incivility in political blogs compared to mainstream outlets, specifically regarding insulting language, vulgarity, and stereotyping of political parties. No difference in the frequency of incivility was found between liberal and conservative outlet forums. Implications for meaningful political discussion and expression are discussed.

中文翻译：

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虚拟硫酸

学者和新闻从业者都称赞在线讨论对政治参与、意见表达和参与的潜力，但评论论坛中对不文明行为的指责比比皆是。本研究利用定量内容分析来检查和比较阅读最广泛的主流新闻媒体和政治博客的虚拟讨论论坛中的不文明程度。851 个用户生成的评论的随机样本被编码为不文明的维度和不文明的方向。正如预测的那样，结果显示与主流媒体相比，政治博客中的不文明行为明显更多，特别是在侮辱性语言、粗俗和政党的陈规定型观念方面。在自由派和保守派的出口论坛之间没有发现不文明的频率差异。