《Is Offensive Commenting Contagious Online? Examining Public vs. Interpersonal Swearing in Response to Donald Trump’s YouTube Campaign Videos 》

《冒犯性的评论会在网上传染吗？针对唐纳德特朗普的 YouTube 竞选视频中公开与人际间的脏话进行研究》

Abstract：

• Purpose： The purpose of this paper is to explore the spillover effects of offensive commenting in online community from the lens of emotional and behavioral contagion. Specifically, it examines the contagion of swearing – a linguistic mannerism that conveys high-arousal emotion – based upon two mechanisms of contagion: mimicry and social interaction effect.
• Design/methodology/approach: The study performs a series of mixed-effect logistic regressions to investigate the contagious potential of offensive comments collected from YouTube in response to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign videos posted between January and April 2016.
• Findings:The study examines non-random incidences of two types of swearing online: public and interpersonal. Findings suggest that a first-level (a.k.a. parent) comment’s public swearing tends to trigger chains of interpersonal swearing in the second-level (a.k.a. child) comments. Meanwhile, among the child-comments, a sequentially preceding comment’s swearing is contagious to the following comment only across the same swearing type. Based on the findings, the study concludes that offensive comments are contagious and have impact on shaping the community-wide linguistic norms of online user interactions.
• Originality/value: The study discusses the ways in which an individual’s display of offensiveness may influence and shape discursive cultures on the internet. This study delves into the mechanisms of text-based contagion by differentiating between mimicry effect and social interaction effect. While online emotional contagion research to this date has focused on the difference between positive and negative valence, internet research that specifically looks at the contagious potential of offensive expressions remains sparse.

摘要：

• 目的：本研究从情绪和行为传染的角度探讨了网络社区中冒犯性评论的溢出效应。具体来说，本研究根据两种传染机制，即模仿和社会互动效应，研究了脏话的传染一种传达高唤醒情绪的语言方式。
• 设计/方法/途径：该研究进行了一系列混合效应逻辑回归，研究从YouTube上收集的针对唐纳德-特朗普在2016年1月至4月期间发布的2016年总统竞选视频的攻击性评论的传染潜力。
• 研究结果：该研究考察了网上两种类型的脏话的非随机发生率：公开和人际。研究结果表明，第一级（即父母)评论的公开脏话往往会引发第二级（即孩子）评论中的人际脏话链。同时，在儿童评论中，顺序在前的评论的脏话只在相同的脏话类型中对后面的评论有威染力。基于这些发现，本研究得出结论，攻击性评论具有传染性，并对塑造整个社区的在线用户互动的语言规范有影响。
• 原创性/价值：该研究讨论了个人展示的冒犯性可能影响和塑造互联网上的话语文化的方式。该研究通过区分模仿效应和社会互动效应，深人研究了基于文本的传染机制。到目前为止，在线情绪传染的研究主要集中在积极和消极价值之间的差异，而专门研究冒犯性表达的传染潜力的互联网研究仍然稀少。

Introduction：

Social interactions on the Internet have increasingly become emotional. Although emotional expressions may be viewed as matters of ‘free speech’ in various user interaction contexts, the exchange of blatant verbal aggressions often provoke anger and hostility among discussants (Kramarae and Kramer, 1995). Excessive emotional expressions can be problematic and undesirable because emotion carries power in meaning, and is easily contagious even by a slight inkling of someone else’s feelings (Barsade, 2002).

开门见识提到，情绪表达虽可以是“自由言论”，但公然的语言攻击会引起愤怒和敌意，过度的情绪表达也很容易传染。

Previous studies have explained offensive commenting on the Internet as an individual behavior driven by a psychological process such as deindividuation and disinhibition, often promoted by user anonymity (Cho and Kwon, 2015; Claessens et al., 2003; McKenna and Bargh, 2000). Less emphasized, however, is the fact that offensiveness can become a community-wide phenomenon through the process of “emotional contagion,” defined as “the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person’s and, consequently, to converge emotionally” (Hatfield et al., 1993, p.96). A central mechanism of emotional contagion is “behavioral synchrony”, an instantaneous behavioral copying that subsequently leads to emotional convergence (Hatfield et al., 1993, p. 97). An exposure to, and simultaneous mimicking of nonverbal behavioral cues are understood as common precursors for emotional contagion in traditional offline settings.

由以往的文献，网络上的语言攻击是一种个人行为，而通过“情绪传染”的过程，其可以变成一种社区范围内的现象。情绪传染的一个核心机制便是“行为同步”，一种瞬间的行为复制。

By contrast, in digitally mediated communication, the presence and immediate copying of a nonverbal signal is often absent because user interactions are predominantly text-based (e.g. discussion boards, microblogging, and online news commenting communities). Accordingly, Internet researchers have recently enquired whether or not emotions are nonetheless contagious in contexts limited to textual interactions. Several studies have shown that emotions can spread via text-based social interactions, most notably by copying linguistic styles (Hancock et al., 2008; Kramer et al., 2014). In other words, synchrony occurs in the form of “language matching” (Gonzales et al., 2010, p.3).

在以数字媒体为媒介的交流中，非语言的信号的存在和直接复制往往不存在，用户的互动往往基于文本。当下的研究xxx的传染/传播仅限于文本互动的背景下。

The current study advances the emotional contagion literature by examining the spillover effect of offensive comments in public online communities (i.e., on YouTube). For the purposes of this study, one particular act of emotional expression is investigated: swearing. Swearing is an explicit way to display a high-arousal emotion (Kwon and Cho, 2017). In face-to-face interpersonal interactions, the use of swear words may sometimes contribute to the atmosphere of informality (Cavazza and Guidetti, 2014). However, in online communities where interaction mostly occurs among strangers or in an anonymous public setting, swearing is most likely linked to emotional disinhibition that accompanies highly active negative emotionality such as anger, frustration, and/or hostility (Ivory and Kaestle, 2013; Kwon and Cho, 2017). Based on the assumption that swearing is a linguistic mannerism that conveys anger and verbal aggression to a varied degree, this study investigates whether swearing is contagious through user text-based interactions.

基于说脏话是一种在不同程度上传达愤怒和语言攻击性的语言方式的假设，本文研究说脏话这一行为是否可以通过用户的文本互动而传染。

This study attempts to advance the literature in two ways. First, by examining the spillover effect of swearing, the study discusses the ways in which an individual’s display of offensiveness may influence and shape discursive cultures on the Internet. To date, most of online emotional contagion research has focused on the difference between positive and negative valence (Hancock et al., 2008; Kramer et al., 2014), neglecting the lower dimensions of emotionality. Offensive commenting conveys anger, a sub-category of negative emotion that fall in line with recent concerns over the rise of digital incivility. Studies that specifically look at the contagious potential of offensiveness in online contexts remain sparse. Second, a majority of emotional contagion research fail to differentiate between the effect of “simple exposures [to emotional cues]” and the effect of “experiencing an interaction” on the likelihood of contagion (Kramer et al., 2014, p. 8788). This study argues that text-based emotional contagion occurs not only by instantaneous exposure to an emotive linguistic marker but also through comment-based social interactions. Such nuanced effects are highlighted by separating and distinguishing the exposure to interpersonal swearing from the exposure to public swearing.

The study examines YouTube user comments posted on the official election campaign channel of newly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump. Akin to other social media platforms that are shaped by user comments and expressions (Hassan and Casalo Arino, 2016), YouTube is known for active user participation and content virality created by it (Chiang and Hsiao, 2015; Kahn and Vong, 2014; Oh et al., 2017). Simultaneously however, YouTube is known to contain a nontrivial portion of users’ anger outbursts. Previous studies have revealed concerns over the platform, and have focused on issues of user interactions, trolling and flaming (Halpern and Gibbs, 2013; Moor et al., 2010). Trump’s channel was selected due to the controversy surrounding his candidacy—inducing polemics from supporters and detractors alike at the time this study was conducted on Spring 2016.

本文以纳德特朗普的 YouTube 竞选视频中公开与人际间的脏话为例进行研究，认为基于文本的情绪传染不仅发生在瞬时接触到情绪化的语言标记上，也发生在基于评论的社会互动中。

Background：

①Online Emotional Contagion

In this regard, the outbursts of emotion that have become increasingly prevalent in today’s digital culture are worth greater scholarly attention. This is especially the case when considering that emotions exchanged through text and online messages are contagious.

Studies on the role of emotion in group dynamics and its contagious potential have highlighted two dimensions of emotions. First, studies have examined whether the valence of emotion – positive and negative –produces disproportionate effects on the contagion process. Another important dimension of interest is the level of arousal in emotion, also known as “emotional energy” or“emotional activation”.

②Interpersonal vs. Public Swearing

Swearing is an act of uttering aggressive languages –or “taboo” words .

First, interpersonal swearing refers to a designative use of taboo-words, targeting specific individuals in the process of social interactions. Interpersonal swearing can trigger reciprocal flaming and trolling among anonymous users, as multiple studies have found negative effects of uncivil social interactions online. (Alonzo and Aiken, 2004; Cho and Kwon, 2015; Coyne et al., 2001).

The second type of swearing is public swearing, distinguished from interpersonal swearing due to no target-specificity. Verbal aggression is not intended to be a direct interpersonal attack. Instead, public swearing functions to accentuate –in an aggressive manner – a speaker’s feelings toward an entity, issue, or event beyond the involved discussants. >While an immediate interpersonal attack is less obvious, public swearing is nonetheless a form of emotional outbursts, characterized as potentially agonistic and uncivil.

③Two Mechanisms for Swearing Contagion

Swearing in text-based social interactions is both emotional and behavioral： it displays activated emotion while it is also an act of verbal aggression. Two theoretical lenses are useful to explain both mechanisms of emotional and behavioral contagion: mimicry and social contagion theory.

1、Mimicry (Most of emotional contagion research is centered on mimicry theory)

2、Social contagion theory (Social contagion theory offers insights on the effects of social interaction on behavioral contagion)

Hypotheses:

• H1: Public swearing of a parent-comment increases the likelihood of a child-comment’s public swearing.
• H2: Public swearing of a preceding child-comment increases the likelihood of the following child-comment’s public swearing.
• H3: Interpersonal swearing of a preceding child-comment increases the likelihood of the following child-comment’s interpersonal swearing.
• H4: Interpersonal swearing of a preceding child-comment increases the likelihood of the following child-comment’s public swearing.

Parent-child comment structure and examples of public and interpersonal swearing (Names are aliases and photos were hidden for privacy).

Research Design:

①Data Collection

The publicly accessible comments data were collected from 38 videos posted to the official channel of Donald Trump (“Donald J. Trump for President”) between January 18, 2016 and April 29, 2016, using the API tool developed by Digital Methods Initiative at the University of Amsterdam.

②Swearing Dictionary

The dictionary was developed based on the two primary sources: (a) public lists of English swear words shared freely on websites such as www.noswearing.com; and (b) a custombuilt dictionary of swear words and abbreviations (e.g., smfh, stfu, wtf, wth) derived from the manual reviews of over 60,000 Twitter messages, developed as a part of one of the authors’ ongoing project.

③Variables

1、Swearing in parent-comment

2、Swearing in the preceding comment

④Dependent variable

1、Comment-level control variables

2、Video-level control variables

Result:

Predicted probability of a focal child comment’s public and interpersonal swearing (Xaxis is the number of swear words in a parent comment; Y-axis is the predicted probability of a focal child-comment; Each color represents the type of swearing of the preceding comment.

Public swearing in first-level comments (parent) tends to trigger a chain of interpersonal swearing in second-level comments (child). Meanwhile, in the sub-comments, the swear words of the previous comments are only transmitted to the following comments in the case of the same type of swear words.

一级评论（父评论）的公开咒骂往往会引发二级评论（子评论）中的人际间咒骂链条。同时，在子评论中，顺序在前的评论的脏话仅在相同脏话类型的情况下才会传染给之后的评论。

Discussion and Conclusion：

Offensive comments are contagious and have an impact on linguistic norms that shape community-wide online user interactions.

攻击性评论具有传染性，并且对塑造社区范围内的在线用户互动的语言规范有影响。

My friend's enemies are my enemies.

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