• DOI:10.1080/10510974.2017.1397038
• Corpus ID: 148766997

The Role of Civility and Metacommunication in Facebook Discussions

@article{Molina2018TheRO,
  title={The Role of Civility and Metacommunication in Facebook Discussions},
  author={Roc{\'i}o Araceli Galarza Molina and Freddie J. Jennings},
  journal={Communication Studies},
  year={2018},
  volume={69},
  pages={42 - 66}
}

• Rocío Araceli Galarza Molina, F. J. Jennings
• Published 1 January 2018
• Geology
• Communication Studies

Social media’s potential for political and social discussion provides great promise since deliberation is key for democracy. Unfortunately, there is a problematic presence of incivility in conversations on digital platforms. We conducted an experiment to examine the effects of this phenomenon, driven by the elaboration likelihood model. Each of our four conditions showed a media outlet’s Facebook post with a story about genetically modified organisms and a comment section beneath with one of the following: a civil discussion, an uncivil discussion, an uncivil conversation with metacommunication encouraging civility, and a control group. Results revealed a mediated relationship of exposure to civil and metacommunicative comments on willingness to engage in a discussion through mental elaboration. We also found evidence of modeling behavior for civility and metacommunication.