DISCUSSING THE NEWS Civility and hostility in user comments

The provision of online news provides unique opportunities for users to interact with content and with other users. One of the more common forms of interactivity involves commenting on news stories. These interactive features are often heralded for enabling virtual public discussion of current events. Yet there exists a widespread belief that these spaces fail to meet that lofty goal, instead exhibiting hostile and vitriolic discourse, which undermines the deliberative potential of online interaction. At the same time, there is a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the proper conceptualization of hostility, and its more desirable counterpart, civility. This article aims to integrate normative and contextual conceptual definitions of hostility and civility in online interactions with the news. Building on these, we develop operational definitions of the two concepts and analyze the presence of hostile and civil discussion in user comments posted to YouTube news videos. Further, we explore the possibility that the content and source of those news videos, as well as popularity and engagement metrics, may explain the degree of hostility and civility in comments.