Internet trolls are often deemed malicious users of online platforms who upset people with the content they make public. With multiple users sharing similar opinions, trolling groups have become more common on social media. Alongside these supposedly mean-spirited groups, prosocial groups also exist that generally promote more positive and well-meaning messages. However, is it fair to assume that these groups are all that different?

In “Prosocial vs. Trolling Community on Facebook: A Comparative Study of Individual Group Communicative Behaviors” (International Journal of Communication, 2018), Associate Professor Elmie Nekmat (NUS Department of Communications and New Media) and Kellyn Lee (Singapore Management University) observe how prosocial and antisocial groups communicate online. Nine analytical categories were used to test three hypotheses to distinguish between the communicative styles of these two types of groups. For this study, two Singapore-based Facebook groups were chosen to represent each category – “Humans of Singapore”, a prosocial group, and SMRT Ltd (Feedback), a trolling group.

Through a systematic random sampling of 19,930 comments posted on the two Facebook groups, 989 comments on 276 posts were selected as the sample size to conduct this study. The first hypothesis, which proposed that members of prosocial communities are “more collaborative and less hostile” than users on trolling in communities, was disproved as the trolling group was not less necessarily less collaborative. The second and third hypotheses were supported by the study as they accurately identified that on a prosocial group comments are more reciprocal, and members are more often in agreement than in trolling groups.

Overall, the findings show that while there is greater cohesiveness in prosocial groups than in trolling groups, trolling groups are not entirely in discord. In fact, trolling communities too have revealed the ability to be cooperative rather than being hostile. Essentially, both prosocial and trolling groups display elements of collaborative communication albeit of varying proportions.

Read the article here.