ABSTRACT
On a late Friday afternoon in May 2008, a grandfather in Hartford, Connecticut, strolled out of a neighborhood grocery store and a black Honda that was chasing after a tan Toyota swerved into the wrong lane, plowed into the 78-year-old and sped off without stopping. The impact sent the retired forklift operator's body flying onto the pavement, where he lay crumpled and bleeding. The perceived callousness displayed by bystanders on the video seized the public's attention more than the cruelty of the hit-and-run. The internet enables and accelerates conversations in ways that were impossible in the previous era of mass media. There are strong forces contributing to journalism's bystander attitude toward comments. To make sense of what happened to forums on news sites is to recognize the collision of journalism, computer-mediated communication technology, comment system design, evolving audience information habits, political polarization and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
