ABSTRACT
Chapter 7: The Technical, the Personal, and the Political: Understanding Journalists and News Users’ Engagement in The New York Times Comments Section, Ashley Muddiman
This chapter examines the influences of commenting behavior. Specifically, the chapter raises three questions: How does the discourse architecture of a news comment section affect engagement with that comment section? How does interaction with commenters influence future commenting behavior? And does a political context influence any of these patterns? To answer these questions, this chapter uses a dataset of 9.6 million comments from The New York Times website. Results show that technical aspects of a comment section matter but so does human interaction. Even in a giant dataset, the personal and small should not be lost. One recommendation could prompt an additional comment that may not have otherwise been posted. One reply from a journalist can decrease the amount of incivility present in a political discussion. The New York Times comments demonstrate that politics—even when presented in large datasets—is still personal.
