The impact of anonymity and issue controversiality on the quality of online discussion

ABSTRACT

The quality of online political discussion is a concern regarding the democratic potential of the Internet. Although there is empirical evidence of the highs and lows in terms of the quality of online discussion, little is known about how different factors affect the discussion quality. Moreover, the effects of anonymity and issue controversiality have not been adequately addressed in previous research. Using an experimental design, the findings indicate that, contrary to expectations, anonymity does not necessarily have a negative effect on the discussion quality. Instead, issue controversiality is found to have a greater impact. Several interaction effects are found.

KEYWORDS:

• Anonymity
• experiment
• factorial design
• issue controversiality
• online
• political discussion
• politics
• quality of discussion
• topic

Notes

¹. Calculated using the online calculator at http://stat.ubc.ca/~rollin/stats/ssize/n2.html

². Persons with polytechnic- or university-level certificates or degrees.

³. Tests showed no statistically significant differences between the groups for variables such as: gender, age, education, and opinion on the two issues.

⁴. The child allowance for children in Finland is independent of the income level of parents at the time of discussion. Gay couples are not allowed external (joint) adoption in Finland.

⁵. A detailed coding scheme is available online: http://tinyurl.com/olsh9yd

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janne Berg

Janne Berg is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Åbo Akademi University in Vasa, Finland. His research interests are in political communication, online discussion, and e-petitions.