RAY C. BLISS INSTITUTE OF APPLIED POLITICS & REGULA CENTER FOR PUBLIC SERVICE Presentation on Civility Research
BUCKEYE TELEPHONE SURVEY The Akron Buckeye Poll was conducted in August of 2011 by The Center for Marketing and Opinion Research, LLC of Canton, Ohio. The survey had 1067 respondents, from a random sample of registered voters in Ohio Respondents were interviewed over the phone, with a cell phone component. The margin of error is +/- 3% The responses were weighted by demography to reflect the 2010 U.S. Census data in Ohio.
IS INCIVILITY AN ISSUE? How Serious a Problem is Incivility Not a serious problem at all Not too serious a problem A somewhat serious problem A very serious problem 0 10 20 30 40 50 Percentage of Public
PERCEIVED SOURCES OF INCIVILITY Most Important Major Reason Public officials 32.0 62.3 Election campaigns 30.9 63.5 The news media 29.9 57.9 The public 7.2 17.3 Percentage of Public
PERCEIVED CAUSES OF INCIVILITY Most Important Major Reason Self-interest by political leaders 57.6 72.3 Strong disagreements over issues 26.3 58.7 Bad manners among ordinary citizens 9.0 30.9 Changes in technology, like the internet 7.1 30.7 Percentage of Public
CONCLUSIONS Nearly 7 in 10 voters believe that incivility is serious problem. The public state that the major sources of incivility are primarily public officials and elections/campaigns. In contrast less than 1 in 10 voters believe that the public is a source of incivility. The public states that the major causes of incivility are self-interested politicians. In contrast the public does not believe that bad manners and new technology are a major cause of incivility.
RESEARCH STUDY: ANALYSIS OF USER POSTS Researchers at the Bliss Institute and Mount Union analyzed reader comments posted in response to online newspaper stories A sample of 200 newspaper stories appearing in the Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland Plain Dealer between January 1, 2011 and June 30, 2011 were analyzed. The study rated the contentiousness of each story, the civility of quotes appearing in the stories and the civility of user comments on a 1-5 scale (1=civil, 5= uncivil).
CONTAGION EFFECT
0 Percent 20 40 60 NUMBER OF COMMENTS PER STORY Histogram of Comments 0 100 200 300 400 500 Number of Comments
1 2 3 4 5 AVERAGE CIVILITY CODE BY ARTICLE Comment Civility by Number of Comments 0 100 200 300 400 500 Number of Comments bandwidth =.8
1 2 3 4 5 COMMENT CIVILITY Comment Civility by Number of Comments 0 20 40 60 80 100 Number of Comments bandwidth =.8
CAUSES OF COMMENT TONE (OLS REGRESSION OF COMMENTS CIVILITY LEVEL) Variable Beta St. Error T Contentiousness of the Story.084.035 2.37 Number of Comments.002.001 3.07 Number of Quotes -.056.013-4.30 Constant 2.78.119 23.48 N = 167; R 2 =.17
CONCLUSIONS Incivility in user comments is common across stories There appears to be no link between the degree of contentiousness of a story or the quotes of political officials within stories and the tone of the user discussion User comments appear to drive the tone of the discussion, as readers largely respond to other readers and incivility appears to increase as the number of comments increases.
INTERNET SURVEY The Bliss Institute with coordination from the Cleveland Plain Dealer conducted an opinion poll of online news story readers from September 9, 2011 to September 24, 2011. There were 361 useable responses This was a non-scientific, volunteer survey of Plain Dealer online readers and so results are not generalizable to any larger group. Results provide exploratory information on basic demographic characteristics and political opinions of the people who post comments on online news stories.
PROFILE OF POSTERS Group Rarely Weekly and Monthly Daily Age (between 35 and 55) 39.4 38.9 20.0 Age (younger than 35) 28.2 22.9 10.0 Income (Less than 50k) 26.7 25.6 25.8 Income (Greater than 100k) 30.9 22.2 35.5 Education (College+) 82.9 68.2 55.7 Male 67.5 62.6 80.6 Democrats 51.1 42.0 32.3 Republicans 30.8 33.4 32.2 Liberal 39.1 31.5 16.2 Conservative 30.4 37.0 35.5
PROFILE OF POSTERS Group Rarely Weekly and Monthly Daily Rate Ohio Politics Civility 7.0 7.3 7.2 Disgust 7.2 7.7 7.4 Liberal Media Bias 46.7 46.7 50.0 Incivility Serious 78.5 73.7 71.0 Internal Efficacy (Informed) 91.3 95.7 87.1 Internal Efficacy (Performance) External Efficacy (Contribute) External Efficacy (Volunteer) 68.4 73.9 76.7 57.8 54.4 42.0 56.6 54.9 48.4 Comments Harm Discourse 49.7 37.7 35.5
REASONS FOR POSTING COMMENTS Variable Percent Percent of Cases To respond to some aspect of a newspaper 14.6% 38.5% The issue or story topic 14.6% 38.5% To make my opinion known 18.5% 48.5% To respond to other users comments 21.5% 56.7% To participate in online discussions 9.3% 24.4% To learn more about the news 3.0% 7.8% To express my frustrations 13.9% 36.7% Other 4.5% 11.9%
CONCLUSIONS Only a handful of people are habitual commenters. Comments are posted for diverse reasons and respondents get their news from a variety of sources. Respondents are mostly middle aged and well educated. Respondents perceive incivility in Ohio politics as a major problem.