Unpacking uncivil society
In the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguis...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Nordicom Review |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0009 |
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| _version_ | 1832570308112941056 |
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| author | Oh Dayei Elayan Suzanne Sykora Martin Downey John |
| author_facet | Oh Dayei Elayan Suzanne Sykora Martin Downey John |
| author_sort | Oh Dayei |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguish between incivility and intolerance. We contend that the core problem of uncivil society is intolerance, not incivility. We then empirically analyse incivility and intolerance during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum and its discussions on Twitter by conducting a content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of 3,000 tweets posted between April and June 2018. The results show that despite selecting a highly emotive and polarised issue, incivility and intolerance do not dominate the Twittersphere. Furthermore, gender and political position of users were found to be associated with use of incivility and intolerance, which increased as the referendum approached. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7925d6b13e794048aaa131d540fb5c67 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2001-5119 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | Sciendo |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordicom Review |
| spelling | doaj-art-7925d6b13e794048aaa131d540fb5c672025-02-02T15:48:50ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192021-03-0142s110311810.2478/nor-2021-0009Unpacking uncivil societyOh Dayei0Elayan Suzanne1Sykora Martin2Downey John3Online Civic Culture Centre (O3C), Loughborough University, UKCentre for Information Management (CIM), Loughborough University, UKCentre for Information Management (CIM), Loughborough University, UKDepartment of Communication and Media, Loughborough University, UKIn the era of rising populist sentiment, deep social and political polarisations, and a growing crisis of online harms, numerous scholars share concern about the impact of such uncivil populist forces on the health of liberal democracy. This article argues that we should first normatively distinguish between incivility and intolerance. We contend that the core problem of uncivil society is intolerance, not incivility. We then empirically analyse incivility and intolerance during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum and its discussions on Twitter by conducting a content analysis and qualitative textual analysis of 3,000 tweets posted between April and June 2018. The results show that despite selecting a highly emotive and polarised issue, incivility and intolerance do not dominate the Twittersphere. Furthermore, gender and political position of users were found to be associated with use of incivility and intolerance, which increased as the referendum approached.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0009uncivil societyincivilityintolerancetwitter public sphereirish abortion referendum |
| spellingShingle | Oh Dayei Elayan Suzanne Sykora Martin Downey John Unpacking uncivil society Nordicom Review uncivil society incivility intolerance twitter public sphere irish abortion referendum |
| title | Unpacking uncivil society |
| title_full | Unpacking uncivil society |
| title_fullStr | Unpacking uncivil society |
| title_full_unstemmed | Unpacking uncivil society |
| title_short | Unpacking uncivil society |
| title_sort | unpacking uncivil society |
| topic | uncivil society incivility intolerance twitter public sphere irish abortion referendum |
| url | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0009 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT ohdayei unpackinguncivilsociety AT elayansuzanne unpackinguncivilsociety AT sykoramartin unpackinguncivilsociety AT downeyjohn unpackinguncivilsociety |