Who will intervene to save news comments? Deviance and social control in communities of news commenters

Abstract

Which bystanders will confront racist, misogynist, personal attacks in news comment sections? This article applies sociological concepts of deviance and social control to categorize efforts to moderate online news comments. Three dimensions of social control are theorized: affirming and sanctioning social control, formal and informal social control, and direct and indirect social control. Particular focus is on indirect informal social control (i.e. rating and reporting of news comments) in order to examine which users are likely to intervene to maintain social order. An analysis of secondary data from a survey of online news users found that demographics play an important role—younger, wealthier, White, males are most likely to report abusive comments. Trust in the news media and authoritarian personality traits also significantly predicted bystander intervention. Theoretical implications for the role of social control in enforcing social norms in news comment spaces and for professional comment moderation are discussed.