To Comment Or Not To Comment - Marie K. Shanahan
-
Upload
katie-steiner -
Category
News & Politics
-
view
271 -
download
2
Transcript of To Comment Or Not To Comment - Marie K. Shanahan
To Comment Or Not To Comment?
#EIJcomment
Comment Sections: The Good
Examples culled from GateHouse Media organizations
Comment Sections: The Bad
Comment Sections: The UGLY
Comment Sections: Why You Should Care
1. Comments can affect what people think about your journalism
2. Incivility in the comments can affect what people take away from your journalism
3. Comments can build community4. Comment sections can be a source of revenue
Comment Sections:State of the Space
Closed Comment Sections
Expanded Comment Sections
Closed, then Re-Opened Comment Sections
Comment Sections:State of the Space
32% of Internet users reported that they had posted a comment on an online news site. (Pew Research, 2010)
Engaging News Project
To provide research-based techniques for engaging online audiences in
commercially viable and democratically beneficial ways.
Reporter Involvement in Comments
DesignPartner with local news station
Across 70 different political posts, we randomized whether:1)Reporter engaged 2)Station engaged3)No engagement
Engagement was respectful, highlighting strong comments
ResultsReporter engagement …• Reduced
incivility• Increased
provision of evidence
Getting Involved in Comment Sections
Journalistic Involvement: Two Views
Comments are the purview of the site users and newsroom staff should not
respond …Diakopoulos & Naaman, 2011, Towards quality discourse in
online news comments.
The tone changes simply
because the user realizes someone
… is listeningJon DeNunzio, Washington Post
Reporter Involvement in Comments
Reporter Involvement in Comments
Techniques to spark conversation and highlight productive comments: 1.Answer legitimate questions (e.g. “Good question Mandy…”)2.Ask questions (e.g. “What are your thoughts on that?”)3.Provide additional information (e.g. “Here’s a link to the bill text.”)4.Encourage and highlight good discussion (e.g. “Tom, you bring up something interesting”)
Testimonials“I’ve had a really positive experience getting involved in the comments. It encourages me to look at the comments section more. The readers respond well when I go in and comment. They generally will thank me for my response.”
-Jessica Parks, county reporter
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“(Engaging News Project) put out a study that showed that having writers moderate and comment on their own stories improved the tenor of comments overall. A handful of reporters for the Inquirer and Daily News have started to do this and anecdotally, we feel it’s been pretty successful.”
-Erica Palan, audience engagement manager
Highlighting Comments
• Highlighting strong comments– Example: Financial Times
Our homepage has a box featuring “best comments” from our readers. We invite our journalists to make suggestions for the homepage box. If a comment posted on their story appears in the box, their article usually has a surge in traffic.
-- Sarah Laitner, Financial Times Communities Editor
Seeding the CommentsResearch found:
With 4 thoughtful comments and 1 unthoughtful comment, people left MORE thoughtful comments.
With 1 thoughtful and 4 unthoughtful comments, people left LESS thoughtful comments.
Sukumaran, A., Vezich, S., McHugh, M., & Nass, C. (2011). Normative influences on thoughtful online participation. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’11 (pp. 3401–3410). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1978942.1979450
Could we use this insight to think about how to get comment sections off on the right foot?
Designing the Space
Sukumaran, A., Vezich, S., McHugh, M., & Nass, C. (2011). Normative influences on thoughtful online participation. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’11 (pp. 3401–3410). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1978942.1979450
Unthoughtful Design Thoughtful Design(a) Visually casual and informal(b) captcha with 1 neutral word (e.g. magenta, curtain) and 3 low thoughtful words (e.g. sloppy)(c) Comment box label = Got something to say??(d) Comment box default text = Have your say here!
(a) Formal and serious appearance(b) Captcha with 1 neutral word and 3 thoughtful words (e.g. understanding)(c) Comment box label = "Please enrich the discussion by adding your comments"(d) Comment box default text = "Please try to make your contributions as constructive as possible"
Research found:
Thoughtful Design = More Thoughtful Comments
Comment structure
One-column vs. three columns
Social media buttons
Hartford Courant File Photo/Stephen Dunn
I’m using your comment section to…
What happens when we don’t monitor our online comment sections
Deep down, all of us have the potential to be a
comment troll.A 2014 survey by YouGov found 30% of Americans admitted to engaging in "malicious online activity directed at somebody they didn't know.”
Graphic by EFF.org/Hugh D'Andrade, via CC
Think online anonymity is the barrier to civility?
“Civility is emotional maturity.”
-Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics by Susan Herbst, Temple University Press, 2010
#Technology #FAIL
We need a better box.
Is social media that box?
photo credit: 4nitsirk via flickr cc
"One of the hardest things to do is scaling openness, whether you
run an internet platform or whether you run a
country.”-- Robert Kyncl, head of content and business operations at
Source: “YouTube promises more measures to tame its comment trolls,” The Guardian. June 2, 2015
What do we really want in our comment sections?
Questions to ponder before initiating an online discussion
Denver Post
STL Public Radio
abc10.com
PRI on Facebook
Connie Schultz on Facebook
“Now that anyone can talk, the public sphere needs fewer authorities and more moderators... seems like a natural role
for journalism.”
– Jonathan Stray, Tinius Trust, May 2015
Questions & Comments?
/engagingnewsprojectengagingnewsproject.org
@engagingnews
www.mariekshanahan.com/
@mariekshan