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Scholarly Works (8 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Davis Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2023)

Discourse incivility is rampant online and has been linked to various adverse democratic outcomes, including political polarization, extremist attitudes, and misinformation. This work centers around understanding the affordances of social media that can disincentivize uncivil discourse in both political and nonpolitical contexts.Reports of sexual assault have been found to elicit online discourse incivility. Chapter 2 employed a computerized coding tool to examine linguistic characteristics of news media that are likely to influence discourse incivility—specifically, negative emotion, disagreement, and discussion about power relations. Additionally, machine learning was harnessed to measure the levels of comment toxicity, insult, profanity, threat, and identity attack in Reddit and Twitter posts sharing news reports of sexual assault. Findings revealed that linguistic features of news articles interact with platform community norms to predict rape culture as expressed within online responses to reports of sexual assault. Fanship identities are an important part of some individual's self-concept. Chapter 3 investigated incivility as it relates to the perceived presence of similar others—specifically in the context of sports fanship, which is a situationally-salient identity. While much of the sports fan literature has investigated incivility between fans of opposing teams, we investigated incivility on fan forums dedicated to specific teams—specifically the levels of incivility in each of the NFL fan subreddits as it relates to the perceived presence of similar others (i.e., the number of followers of each subreddit total number of households in the media market each team is located). Results revealed a negative relationship between the total size of fandom (media market) and 3/5 dimensions of incivility—toxicity, insults, and profanity. Findings suggest that--in the presence of similar others, incivility declined with a larger perceived audience. In other words, the more folks users perceive share their fan identity when talking to an audience comprised of fellow fans, the less likely users are to be uncivil. Issues of identity and online behaviors are closely linked; individuals’ self-esteem needs are shaped--in part--by their sense of group inclusion and the perceived value of the groups we belong to. Political partisanship is a social identity that causes this sense of self and ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ attitude, manifesting as uncivil behavior toward the political outgroup online. Yet, as social beings, individuals adapt their communication to the situation at hand — the "context." Chapter 4 employed an interactive mock social media platform to test whether users act more civilly toward political opposition in cross-cutting discourse about a polarized health topic (i.e., making birth control easily accessible and free to all college students) when they share nonpolitical identities with them—or feel like they are more similar. Likewise, we tested whether civil conversation can lead to attitude convergence rather than reinforcement, as well as reduced affective polarization. While findings did not show changes in political polarization, results showed that when individuals share nonpolitical identities with political outgroup members in cross-cutting exchanges, they act more civilly than when they do not. Overall, these studies demonstrate how the interactions between social media platform features, user identities, and perceived audience identities can be leveraged to promote civil discourse in three contexts and extend the use of linguistic methodologies to measure incivility in naturalistic and experimental settings. Implications and future directions are discussed.

    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2021)
    Reports of sexual assault have been found to elicit online discourse incivility. The present study employs a computerized coding tool to examine linguistic characteristics of news media that are likely to influence discourse incivility—specifically, negative emotion, disagreement, and discussion about power relations. Additionally, machine learning was harnessed to measure the levels of comment toxicity, insult, profanity, threat, and identity attack in Reddit and Twitterposts sharing news reports of sexual assault. Findings reveal that linguistic features of news articles interact with platform community norms to predict rape culture as expressed within online responses to reports of sexual assault.
      Cover page: Uncivil Reactions to Sexual Assault Online: Linguistic Features of News Reports Predict Discourse Incivility
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC Davis Previously Published Works (2022)
      BACKGROUND: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, social media have influenced the circulation of health information. Public health agencies often use Twitter to disseminate and amplify the propagation of such information. Still, exposure to local government-endorsed COVID-19 public health information does not make one immune to believing misinformation. Moreover, not all health information on Twitter is accurate, and some users may believe misinformation and disinformation just as much as those who endorse more accurate information. This situation is complicated, given that elected officials may pursue a political agenda of re-election by downplaying the need for COVID-19 restrictions. The politically polarized nature of information and misinformation on social media in the United States has fueled a COVID-19 infodemic. Because pre-existing political beliefs can both facilitate and hinder persuasion, Twitter users belief in COVID-19 misinformation is likely a function of their goal inferences about their local government agencies motives for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: We shed light on the cognitive processes of goal understanding that underlie the relationship between partisanship and belief in health misinformation. We investigate how the valence of Twitter users goal inferences of local governments COVID-19 efforts predicts their belief in COVID-19 misinformation as a function of their political party affiliation. METHODS: We conducted a web-based cross-sectional survey of US Twitter users who followed their states official Department of Public Health Twitter account (n=258) between August 10 and December 23, 2020. Inferences about local governments goals, demographics, and belief in COVID-19 misinformation were measured. State political affiliation was controlled. RESULTS: Participants from all 50 states were included in the sample. An interaction emerged between political party affiliation and goal inference valence for belief in COVID-19 misinformation (∆R 2=0.04; F 8,249=4.78; P<.001); positive goal inference valence predicted increased belief in COVID-19 misinformation among Republicans (β=.47; t 249=2.59; P=.01) but not among Democrats (β=.07; t 249=0.84; P=.40). CONCLUSIONS: Our results reveal that favorable inferences about local governments COVID-19 efforts can accelerate belief in misinformation among Republican-identifying constituents. In other words, accurate COVID-19 transmission knowledge is a function of constituents sentiment toward politicians rather than science, which has significant implications on public health efforts for minimizing the spread of the disease, as convincing misinformed constituents to practice safety measures might be a political issue just as much as it is a health one. Our work suggests that goal understanding processes matter for misinformation about COVID-19 among Republicans. Those responsible for future COVID-19 public health messaging aimed at increasing belief in valid information about COVID-19 should recognize the need to test persuasive appeals that address partisans pre-existing political views in order to prevent individuals goal inferences from interfering with public health messaging.
        Cover page: Constituents Inferences of Local Governments Goals and the Relationship Between Political Party and Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation: Cross-sectional Survey of Twitter Followers of State Public Health Departments.Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UC Davis Previously Published Works (2022)
        BACKGROUND: Despite vaccine availability, vaccine hesitancy has inhibited public health officials efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Although some US elected officials have responded by issuing vaccine mandates, others have amplified vaccine hesitancy by broadcasting messages that minimize vaccine efficacy. The politically polarized nature of COVID-19 information on social media has given rise to incivility, wherein health attitudes often hinge more on political ideology than science. OBJECTIVE: To the best of our knowledge, incivility has not been studied in the context of discourse regarding COVID-19 vaccines and mandates. Specifically, there is little focus on the psychological processes that elicit uncivil vaccine discourse and behaviors. Thus, we investigated 3 psychological processes theorized to predict discourse incivility-namely, anxiety, anger, and sadness. METHODS: We used 2 different natural language processing approaches: (1) the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count computational tool and (2) the Google Perspective application programming interface (API) to analyze a data set of 8014 tweets containing terms related to COVID-19 vaccine mandates from September 14, 2021, to October 1, 2021. To collect the tweets, we used the Twitter API Tweet Downloader Tool (version 2). Subsequently, we filtered through a data set of 375,000 vaccine-related tweets using keywords to extract tweets explicitly focused on vaccine mandates. We relied on the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count computational tool to measure the valence of linguistic anger, sadness, and anxiety in the tweets. To measure dimensions of post incivility, we used the Google Perspective API. RESULTS: This study resolved discrepant operationalizations of incivility by introducing incivility as a multifaceted construct and explored the distinct emotional processes underlying 5 dimensions of discourse incivility. The findings revealed that 3 types of emotions-anxiety, anger, and sadness-were uniquely associated with dimensions of incivility (eg, toxicity, severe toxicity, insult, profanity, threat, and identity attacks). Specifically, the results showed that anger was significantly positively associated with all dimensions of incivility (all P<.001), whereas sadness was significantly positively related to threat (P=.04). Conversely, anxiety was significantly negatively associated with identity attack (P=.03) and profanity (P=.02). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that our multidimensional approach to incivility is a promising alternative to understanding and intervening in the psychological processes underlying uncivil vaccine discourse. Understanding specific emotions that can increase or decrease incivility such as anxiety, anger, and sadness can enable researchers and public health professionals to develop effective interventions against uncivil vaccine discourse. Given the need for real-time monitoring and automated responses to the spread of health information and misinformation on the web, social media platforms can harness the Google Perspective API to offer users immediate, automated feedback when it detects that a comment is uncivil.
          Cover page: Emotions and Incivility in Vaccine Mandate Discourse: Natural Language Processing Insights.Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
          BACKGROUND: Vaccine hesitancy poses a substantial threat to efforts to mitigate the harmful effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. To combat vaccine hesitancy, officials in the United States issued vaccine mandates, which were met with strong antivaccine discourse on social media platforms such as Reddit. The politicized and polarized nature of COVID-19 on social media has fueled uncivil discourse related to vaccine mandates, which is known to decrease confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. OBJECTIVE: This study examines the moral foundations underlying uncivil COVID-19 vaccine discourse. Moral foundations theory poses that individuals make decisions to express approval or disapproval (ie, uncivil discourse) based on innate moral values. We examine whether moral foundations are associated with dimensions of incivility. Further, we explore whether there are any differences in the presence of incivility between the r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism subreddits. METHODS: Natural language processing methodologies were leveraged to analyze the moral foundations underlying uncivil discourse in 2 prominent antivaccine subreddits, r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism. All posts and comments from both of the subreddits were collected since their inception in March 2022. This was followed by filtering the data set for key terms associated with the COVID-19 vaccine (eg, vaccinate and Pfizer) and mandates (eg, forced and mandating). These key terms were selected based on a review of existing literature and because of their salience in both of the subreddits. A 10% sample of the filtered key terms was used for the final analysis. RESULTS: Findings suggested that moral foundations play a role in the psychological processes underlying uncivil vaccine mandate discourse. Specifically, we found substantial associations between all moral foundations (ie, care and harm, fairness and cheating, loyalty and betrayal, authority and subversion, and sanctity and degradation) and dimensions of incivility (ie, toxicity, insults, profanity, threat, and identity attack) except for the authority foundation. We also found statistically significant differences between r/coronaviruscirclejerk and r/lockdownskepticism for the presence of the dimensions of incivility. Specifically, the mean of identity attack, insult, toxicity, profanity, and threat in the r/lockdownskepticism subreddit was significantly lower than that in the r/coronaviruscirclejerk subreddit (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that moral foundations may play a substantial role in the presence of incivility in vaccine discourse. On the basis of the findings of the study, public health practitioners should tailor messaging by addressing the moral values underlying the concerns people may have about vaccines, which could manifest as uncivil discourse. Another way to tailor public health messaging could be to direct it to parts of social media platforms with increased uncivil discourse. By integrating moral foundations, public health messaging may increase compliance and promote civil discourse surrounding COVID-19.
            Cover page: Incivility in COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Discourse and Moral Foundations: Natural Language Processing Approach.Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            UC Davis Previously Published Works (2021)

            Background

            As of May 9, 2021, the United States had 32.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 (20.7% of confirmed cases worldwide) and 580,000 deaths (17.7% of deaths worldwide). Early on in the pandemic, widespread social, financial, and mental insecurities led to extreme and irrational coping behaviors, such as panic buying. However, despite the consistent spread of COVID-19 transmission, the public began to violate public safety measures as the pandemic got worse.

            Objective

            In this work, we examine the effect of fear-inducing news articles on people's expression of anxiety on Twitter. Additionally, we investigate desensitization to fear-inducing health news over time, despite the steadily rising COVID-19 death toll.

            Methods

            This study examined the anxiety levels in news articles (n=1465) and corresponding user tweets containing "COVID," "COVID-19," "pandemic," and "coronavirus" over 11 months, then correlated that information with the death toll of COVID-19 in the United States.

            Results

            Overall, tweets that shared links to anxious articles were more likely to be anxious (odds ratio [OR] 2.65, 95% CI 1.58-4.43, P<.001). These odds decreased (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.2-0.83, P=.01) when the death toll reached the third quartile and fourth quartile (OR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21-0.85, P=.01). However, user tweet anxiety rose rapidly with articles when the death toll was low and then decreased in the third quartile of deaths (OR 0.61, 95% CI 0.37-1.01, P=.06). As predicted, in addition to the increasing death toll being matched by a lower level of article anxiety, the extent to which article anxiety elicited user tweet anxiety decreased when the death count reached the second quartile.

            Conclusions

            The level of anxiety in users' tweets increased sharply in response to article anxiety early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, but as the casualty count climbed, news articles seemingly lost their ability to elicit anxiety among readers. Desensitization offers an explanation for why the increased threat is not eliciting widespread behavioral compliance with guidance from public health officials. This work investigated how individuals' emotional reactions to news of the COVID-19 pandemic manifest as the death toll increases. Findings suggest individuals became desensitized to the increased COVID-19 threat and their emotional responses were blunted over time.
              Cover page: Desensitization to Fear-Inducing COVID-19 Health News on Twitter: Observational StudyCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              UC Davis Previously Published Works (2021)
              [This corrects the article DOI: 10.2196/26876.].
                Cover page: Metadata Correction: “Desensitization to Fear-Inducing COVID-19 Health News on Twitter: Observational Study”Creative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                UC Davis Previously Published Works (2022)
                The COVID-19 pandemic changed school contexts and social opportunities dramatically for adolescents around the world. Thus, certain adolescents may have been more susceptible to the stress of the pandemic as a function of differences in schooling. We present data from 1256 United States adolescents (ages 14-16) to examine how the 2020-2021 school context (in-person, hybrid, or virtual) related to feelings of school satisfaction and success, social connection, mental health, and media use. We also examine differences as a function of gender identity. Results demonstrate that school context, particularly in-person compared to virtual schooling, was related to higher school satisfaction and academic success, stronger feelings of social connection and inclusion, lower levels of anxiety and depression, and less problematic media use. Interestingly, adolescents did seem to use media as a tool to support social connection when in hybrid or virtual school contexts, but they also reported higher rates of problematic media use, thus suggesting that media use needs to be examined more carefully to understand its role as a potential protective mechanism for adolescents' social connection and mental health. These findings provide baseline information about how schools' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic may have created disparities among youth. These findings have implications for current school interventions.
                  Cover page: U.S. adolescents’ attitudes toward school, social connection, media use, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Differences as a function of gender identity and school contextCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
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