Welcome to my place! It's great to have you here! AN INTERESTING WEB DESTINATION
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Public Market Place Of Ideas
"The Web is a place for unlimited exchange of ideas. But according to an NPR report, researchers have found that rude comments on articles can change the way we interpret the news.
'It's a little bit like the Wild West. The trolls are winning,' says
Dominique Brossard, co-author of the study on the so-called 'Nasty
Effect.' Researchers worked with a science writer to construct a
balanced news story on the pros and cons of nanotechnology, a topic
chosen so that readers would have to make sense of a complicated issue
with low familiarity. They then asked 1,183 subjects to review the blog
post from a Canadian newspaper that discussed the water contamination
risks of nanosilver particles and the antibacterial benefits. Half saw
the story with polite comments, and the other half saw rude comments,
like: 'If you don't see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these
products, you're an idiot.' People that were exposed to the polite
comments didn't change their views really about the issue covering the
story, while the people that did see the rude comments became polarized
— they became more against the technology that was covered in the
story. Brossard says we need to have an anchor to make sense of
complicated issues. 'And it seems that rudeness and incivility is used
as a mental shortcut to make sense of those complicated issues.' Brossard says there's no quick fix for this issue
(PDF), and while she thinks it's important to foster conversation
through comments sections, every media organization has to figure out
where to draw the line when comments get out of control. 'It's possible
that the social norms in this brave new domain will change once more —
with users shunning meanspirited attacks from posters hiding behind
pseudonyms and cultivating civil debate instead,' writes Brossard.
'Until then, beware the nasty effect.'"
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