ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes reader comments on English- and Spanish-language newspaper stories to see whether they differ in the level of incivility and flaming, and whether there are differences based on a story’s focus on race, gender, or class. Comments were collected at the end of the day stories were posted. From the full sample, ten stories were chosen at random from each publication, with the requirement that at least one story on race, one story on gender, and one story on class was included from each newspaper. Most comments on Spanish-language newspapers were in Spanish, and all comments on English-speaking newspapers were in English. Aside from identifiers including newspaper name, language, city, publication date, and story headline, each comment was coded for two variables: the kind of diversity addressed, and the presence of uncivil or flaming remarks. Spanish-language newspaper readers were significantly more uncivil in their comments than were readers of English-language newspapers.
