TY  - JOUR
A1  - Naab, Teresa K.
A1  - Ruess, Hanna-Sophie
A1  - Küchler, Constanze
T1  - The influence of the deliberative quality of user comments on the number and quality of their reply comments
T2  - New Media & Society
N2  - Comment sections below news posts on social media pages of news outlets provide spaces for user engagement and public discussions. However, from the normative perspective of deliberative discussions, user comments often lack quality. We analyze how deliberative characteristics of Facebook user comments, namely, reciprocity, respect, rationality, and constructiveness, can influence the number and deliberative quality of the reply comments they receive. The manual content analysis shows that rationality in top comments increases the number of replies; additionally, respect, rationality, and constructiveness in top comments increase the occurrence of these characteristics in replies. The findings support assumptions about the involvement mechanisms in commenting behavior and the applicability of social norm theory in online discussions. They contribute to understanding spirals of deliberation as well as those of incivility.
KW  - Sociology and Political Science
KW  - Communication
Y1  - 2025
UR  - https://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/frontdoor/index/index/docId/105342
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:384-opus4-1053421
SN  - 1461-4448
SN  - 1461-7315
VL  - 27
IS  - 1
SP  - 62
EP  - 83
PB  - SAGE Publications
CY  - New York, NY
ER  -