{"id":30419,"date":"2022-07-10T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T02:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/?p=30419"},"modified":"2022-07-12T10:50:49","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T02:50:49","slug":"behind-anonymity-network-affordances-under-deindividuation-improve-social-media-discussion-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/2022\/07\/10\/behind-anonymity-network-affordances-under-deindividuation-improve-social-media-discussion-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind Anonymity: Network Affordances, Under Deindividuation, Improve Social Media Discussion Quality"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: \u2018Election Rally\u2019 by Filbert Kuong from SRN\u2019s SG Photobank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
The 2020 General Elections, which elected 93 members to the Parliament of Singapore, were held on 10th July. In various models of democracy, political decision-making relies on citizens\u2019 ability to conduct rational and civil discussions to arrive at a consensus. Many of the world\u2019s political discussions occur on social media platforms, which allow people to create and share content and join different communities. However, most of these political discussions have low discussion quality and heightened incivility. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Some scholars have hypothesised that when our personal information is visible, we engage in more civil discussions than when we are able to hide behind a veneer of anonymity. However, other researchers have also suggested that anonymity could facilitate public deliberation by increasing inclusivity and encouraging participation. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In \u2018Behind Anonymity: Network Affordances, Under Deindividuation, Improve Social Media Discussion Quality\u2019 (Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication<\/em>, 2022), Assistant Professor Kokil Jaidka (NUS Department of Communications and New Media), Mr Alvin Zhou (University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication), Associate Professor Yphtach Lelkes (University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communication), Ms Jana Egelhofer (University of Vienna Department of Communication), and Professor Sophie Lecheler (University of Vienna Department of Communication) examine the causal effects of personal and social anonymity on discussion quality using a custom-built social media platform. The article received a top 10 listing on the 2021 Altmetric Score.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Using gun control, a hot-button issue in the United States, as the topic of discussion, the research team measured discussion quality along the dimensions of constructiveness, justification, and incivility. The experiment was conducted in 2019 and early 2020 when the United States witnessed the highest number of mass shootings in recent memory. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Through the internet, people are able to remain anonymous and hide their personal identity. At the same time, they may still reveal their social identity when signalling their allegiance to any political party they support. When only our social identity information is on display, we may feel the need to conform to a group, and behave more rationally. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The research team found that social identifiability had the most positive impact on conversations. When coupled with personal anonymity, social identifiability resulted in the most rational discussions. This is because when people are socially identifiable as belonging to a group, it increases their need to behave in line with the normative behaviour of the group, therefore encouraging more rational behaviour and resulting in a higher quality of discussions. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The authors also found that contrary to expectations, when coupled with social identifiability, personal anonymity inhibited rather than promoted incivility. This could be because being able to remain personally anonymous may increase the importance of other cues, such as linguistic or social identity cues. Personal anonymity also decreases the motivation to process information, leading to reduced engagement and therefore less incivility. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The team also pointed out that incivility is an inadequate measure of discussion quality in measuring deliberation quality, since in the study, the correlation between rationality and incivility was found to be weakly negative. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Read the article here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 2020 General Elections, which elected 93 members to the Parliament of Singapore, were held on 10th July. In various models of democracy, political decision-making relies on citizens\u2019 ability to conduct rational and civil discussions to arrive at a consensus. Many of the world\u2019s political discussions occur on social media platforms, which allow people to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":30420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4529,4606,4604],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research","category-visible"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30419"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30568,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30419\/revisions\/30568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fass.nus.edu.sg\/srn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}