The impact of gender and political affiliation on trolling

Authors

  • Pnina Fichman Indiana University
  • Maren W. McClelland Indiana University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i1.11061

Keywords:

trolling, twitter, gender, political trolling, political affiliation

Abstract

Political trolling on social media platforms is more common than ever before, attracting media and scholarly attention. We examined if trolling target’s gender and ideology impact the extent of trolling towards their tweet, based on content analysis of 3,000 Twitter comments. We found both main and interaction effects of gender and political affiliation on trolling, specifically: tweets by female politicians were trolled more than tweets by male; tweets by Republicans were trolled more than tweets by Democrats; and tweets by male Democrats were trolled less than tweets by all other politicians.

Author Biography

Maren W. McClelland, Indiana University

student at Indiana University, Bloomington

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Published

2020-12-11

How to Cite

Fichman, P., & McClelland, M. W. (2020). The impact of gender and political affiliation on trolling . First Monday, 26(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i1.11061