What is it about?
On social media and news websites, polite and rude (uncivil) comments often appear side by side. Most research on online incivility has focused on people reading in their native language (L1), but little is known about how incivility affects readers when the comments are in a second language (L2). This study explores whether reading uncivil comments in an L2 influences people’s opinions about emerging technologies. The researchers conducted two studies: one examining how uncivil L2 comments affect perceptions of nanotechnology and another analyzing Twitter debates on scientific topics. The results show that people are more likely to accept arguments written politely rather than rudely—but only when reading in their native language. This suggests that language plays a role in how people react to online discussions.
Featured Image
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Understanding how language affects reactions to online incivility can help improve digital communication, especially in multilingual spaces where discussions about science and technology might shape public opinion.
Perspectives
This paper was the result of a collaboration with ERI Lectura, a pioneering research institute on the psychology of reading.
Agnese Sampietro
Universitat Jaume I
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Incivility in online news and Twitter: effects on attitudes toward scientific topics when reading in a second language, Language Sciences, May 2021, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2021.101385.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
