Cross-Cutting Exposure in Online News Comments: The Effects of Group Identification and Uncivil Discourse on Opinion Conformity and Expression

Sai Wang, Ki Joon Kim*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Abstract

Drawing upon the social identity model of deindividuation effects, this study investigated the effects of intergroup relations and discursive quality on individuals’ responses to comments that challenge their existing beliefs on news websites. A two-session online experiment with a 2 (group membership: in-group vs. out-group) × 2 (comment tone: civil vs. uncivil) between-subjects factorial design was conducted. The results showed that exposure to counter-attitudinal comments from in-group members, compared to out-group members, led to greater opinion conformity and less expression of disagreement. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between group membership and comment tone on disagreement expression. When counter-attitudinal comments were uncivil, individuals exposed to in-group comments expressed less dissent in their replies than those exposed to out-group comments. This tendency, however, was not significant when the counter-attitudinal comments were expressed in a civil tone.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-25
Number of pages25
JournalMedia Psychology
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 9 Sept 2024

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Communication
  • Social Psychology
  • Applied Psychology

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