Don’t feed the trolling: rethinking how online trolling is being defined and combated

ABSTRACT

Trolling involves deliberate, deceptive and mischievous attempts to provoke reactions from other online users. Even though trolling causes problems for marketers and consumers, there has been little discussion about what trolling actually is and how marketers should respond to it. The present conceptual study addresses these gaps. First, we present a working, integrative definition of trolling behaviours, arguing that trolling is substantively different from cyberbullying. Next, we present the challenges of current trolling regulations, showing that trolling is sometimes the result of the regulations themselves. The paper concludes with a presentation of the conceptual model of the manifestation of trolling behaviours. The model informs and assists scholars and marketing practitioners concerned with understanding and addressing trolling.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumer misbehaviour
• online trolling
• trolling regulation
• social media
• routine activity theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maja Golf-Papez

Maja Golf-Papez is a doctoral student in Marketing at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Her research interests lie in enlightening the dark sides of consumer behaviours and consumer–brand relationships.

Ekant Veer

Ekant Veer is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His work primarily focuses on social marketing, transformative consumer research, CCT research and digital marketing. His work has been published in numerous journals including the Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Research for Consumers and Journal of Consumer Behaviour.