Engaging journalists in comment section curbs net trolling

Having a recognisable journalist engage with commenters on a news site can reduce internet trolling, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of Texas, Purdue University and University of Wyoming, found that having a journalist engage with commenters can affect the deliberative tone of the comments, reducing incivility by 17 per cent.
The researchers partnered with a local television news station and conducted an experiment using its Facebook community of 40,000 followers.
Between December 2012 and April 2013 a total of 70 political posts were included in the study on a randomised schedule.
Each post was assigned to one of three random conditions: a well-known reporter would engage in the comments section; the station's web team (under its insignia) would engage; or there would be no engagement at all from the station.

The researchers then conducted a content analysis of all 70 posts and the 2,403 comments left on these posts. They examined whether the comments were civil, relevant, contained genuine questions and provided evidence.

The researchers found that in comment sections where the recognised journalist engaged with the audience, it had a statistically significant effect on the tone of the comments.
Incivility decreased by 17 per cent and people were 15 per cent more likely to use evidence in their comments on the subject matter.
"Given that many news organisations have comment sections and recent surveys suggest that they are likely to stay around, we wanted to identify strategies that could affect the types of comments left by site visitors," said Natalie Stroud from the University of Texas.

"Drawing from theoretical work about norms, our research suggests that journalist involvement is a helpful strategy," Stroud said.
The study was published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.