Selected Papers of AoIR 2016: The 17th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers Berlin, Germany / 5-8 October 2016   Suggested  Citation  (APA):  Løvlie,  A.  S.,  &  Ihlebæk,  K.  A.  (2016).  Experiences  Of  Repercussions  From   Participation  In  Online  Debate.  Paper  presented  at  AoIR  2016:  The  17th  Annual  Conference  of  the   Association  of  Internet  Researchers.  Berlin,  Germany:  AoIR.  Retrieved  from  http://spir.aoir.org.     EXPERIENCES  OF  REPERCUSSIONS  FROM  PARTICIPATION  IN   ONLINE  DEBATE     Anders  Sundnes  Løvlie   IT  University  of  Copenhagen     Karoline  Andrea  Ihlebæk   University  of  Oslo       Introduction     The  Internet  has  radically  changed  opportunities  for  participation  in  public  debate.  While   many  studies  have  explored  the  democratic  potential  of  online  discussion  forums   (Jensen,  2003;;  Wright  and  Street,  2007),  others  have  investigated  the  rise  of   problematic  behavior  such  as  "flaming"  (Lee,  2005;;  Santana,  2014),  "trolling"  (Coleman,   2012;;  Phillips,  2015),  and  harassment  of  women  (Biber  et  al.,  2002).  Some  recent   studies  have  indicated  that  men  experience  threats  more  often  than  women,  whereas   women  are  more  prone  to  gendered  and  sexual  responses,  and  tend  to  limit  their  own   utterances  to  a  larger  degree  then  men  (Author,  2014a;;  Enjolras  &  Steen-­Johnsen,   2014;;  Pew  Research  Center,  2014).  Comment  systems  of  online  newspapers  have   been  a  particularly  controversial  area,  due  to  the  need  to  balance  the  news  media's   commitment  to  free  debate  with  their  legal  and  ethical  responsibilities  (Author,  2014b;;   Singer  et  al.,  2011).     In  this  paper  we  explore  negative  experiences  reported  in  a  survey  among  contributors   to  the  online  comments  systems  of  four  Norwegian  newspapers.  The  survey  was   conducted  one  year  after  the  2011  terror  attacks,  which  led  to  a  public  backlash  against   online  debate  in  Norway  (Author,  2013a;;  2013b).  We  investigate  the  following  research   question:  How  do  contributors  to  online  comments  systems  in  newspaper  websites   describe  their  experiences  of  repercussions  from  participation  in  debates?     In  earlier  analyses  of  data  from  this  survey  (Author,  forthcoming)  we  have  explored  the   respondents'  experiences  with  editorial  control,  and  found  that  they  could  be  described   along  a  spectrum  between  'interventionist'  (favouring  stronger  editorial  control)  to  non-­ interventionist  (favouring  less  editorial  control)  positions.  The  non-­interventionists  are   typically  males  who  participate  in  debates  often  and  prefer  to  be  anonymous.  Our   findings  resonate  with  those  of  Enjolras  et  al.  (2013,  pp.  111–152),  who  found  that   contributors  to  online  comments  in  national  newspaper  websites  were  predominantly   male,  somewhat  less  educated,  somewhat  more  negative  towards  immigration  and   islam,  more  polarised  in  their  opinions  and  placed  less  trust  in  the  government  and   public  institutions.     Method     The  participants  in  the  survey  were  invited  through  a  link  placed  in  the  comments   section  of  each  newspaper.  The  survey  was  open  for  two  weeks,  from  17  September  –   3  October  2013  and  we  received  3470  answers.  The  survey  consisted  of  closed  and   open-­form  questions,  and  this  paper  is  based  on  a  quantitative  and  qualitative  analysis   of  two  of  these  questions.  For  analysis  of  the  open-­form  question  two  independent   coders  have  first  coded  the  responses  following  a  codebook  developed  by  the  authors.   In  the  second  step  of  the  analysis,  the  authors  have  done  a  close  reading  of  the  free-­ text  answers.     Results  and  discussion     We  started  our  analysis  intending  to  explore  relations  between  gender  and  the   experience  of  negative  repercussions  from  participation  in  online  comments,  by   analysing  the  following  question  from  the  survey:  "Have  you  ever  experienced  problems   in  your  everyday  life  as  a  consequence  of  something  you  have  written  in  online   comments  -­  for  instance  problems  with  your  employer  or  colleagues,  harassment,   threats,  etc.?"  A  logistic  regression  analysis  shows  a  significant  correlation  with  gender,   indicating  that  female  respondents  more  often  have  experienced  problems  of  this  type   (standardized  beta:  0.650;;  Sig:  0.000).       Respondents  who  answered  "yes"  to  this  first  question  (11%),  were  presented  with  a   conditional  follow-­up,  free-­text  question:  "Can  you  give  an  example  of  problems  that   have  occurred  as  a  consequence  of  online  discussions  (as  mentioned  in  the  previous   question)?"  The  diagram  below  (Figure  1)  shows  the  types  of  problems  mentioned  by   respondents,  separated  by  gender.       Figure  1:  Types  of  problems.  Two  independent  coders.  Krippendorff's  Alpha:  0.757.  X-­squared=8.046,  df=6,   p=0.23.   While  our  analysis  shows  some  gender  differences,  these  are  not  statistically   significant.  A  qualitative  reading  of  all  the  316  free-­text  responses,  separated  by  gender,   also  failed  to  provide  any  clear  gender-­related  findings  of  the  type  reported  elsewhere   (Author,  2014b).     Instead,  the  qualitative  reading  shed  some  light  on  the  large  number  of  answers  that   have  been  coded  as  'negative  responses'  or  'no  relevant  answer'.  The  former  category   represents  descriptions  of  relatively  inconsequential  problems,  such  as  “unwanted   discussions”  or  "uncomfortable  confrontations".  Virtually  no  respondents  (1-­2  cases)   reported  incidents  involving  police  or  legal  consequences.  In  other  words,  we  found  that   a  large  proportion  of  respondents  were  unable  (or  unwilling)  to  give  specific  examples  of   serious  incidents.     Instead,  we  found  ubiquitous  references  to  political  affiliation  and  attitudes  towards   immigrants  and  Islam.  A  picture  emerged  of  respondents  who  divide  the  world  in  two   along  a  political  axis,  and  explain  the  problems  they  have  experienced  as  a   consequence  of  the  struggle  between  two  opposing  fronts.  Among  the  responses  where   a  political  standpoint  was  indicated,  most  respondents  expressed  affiliation  with  the  right   wing  and  opposition  to  immigration  and  Islam.  Many  expressed  an  experience  of   marginalisation,  censorship  and  bullying  by  "politically  correct"  media  and  elites.  And  yet   the  concrete  repercussions  they  would  mention  would  often  be  relatively   inconsequential  experiences,  such  as:     •   "Friends  call  me  racist."   •   "Negative  comments."   •   "People  who  don't  like  my  opinions  have  given  sarcastic  comments  or  tried  to   patronize."     We  suggest  that  the  responses  to  our  survey  should  be  viewed  in  light  of  differences  in   communicative  competencies  among  different  groups  of  participants.  The  main  purpose   of  online  comments  systems  in  newspaper  websites  is  to  invite  non-­elites  to  take  part  in   public  debate:  people  who  do  not  necessarily  possess  the  competencies  of  a   professional  communicator.  It  should  not  be  surprising  if  such  participants  have  quite   different  expectations  about  what  consequences  one  might  reasonably  expect  after   making  controversial  statements  in  public.  This  points  to  an  important  challenge  for   online  newspapers,  which  will  be  elaborated  further  in  our  full  paper 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