Policing the Other Side

1
Policing the Other Side

• A Journalist Explores The Moderation of An
  Online News Community
• Scott Davis
• COM 605
• May 1, 2006

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Allowing interaction

• Traditional news organizations have become more
  interactive online.
• News Web sites give consumers a larger voice with
  features such as blogs, polls and forums.
• Presents a unique challenge to balance the need
  for civil discourse with legal and ethical issues.

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Becoming uncivil

• News itself is often controversial, and this is
  reflected in reader interaction.
• Online conversations from readers can get uncivil
  and can devolve into name-calling, personal
  attacks, hate speech and profanity.
• Online communities attempt to prevent this
  through moderation.

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Blogs vs. forums

• Different types of online communities.
• Online News Forums are different from blogs.
• Blog have author(s) from the service that start
  topics and monitor the conversation (threads).
• Forums allow consumers to start topics. No
  author(s) from the service monitor the threads.

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Online news forums vs. other forums

• The news nature often brings in controversial and
  wide range of topics in news forums.
• Other forums may have a stronger sense of
  community and stronger ties i.e. forum for SIRIUS
  satellite radio.
• Need for moderation greater in news forums.

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What is moderation?

• A technique to maintain civil discourse.
• A form of conflict management.
• Can moderate for content or behavior.
• Moderators perform the moderation.

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Who are the moderators?

• Volunteers or paid employees.
• Each board is unique in how they are chosen they
  can apply or be recruited or chosen randomly.

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What do they do?

• Depends on forum, but generally enforce the
  social contract (rules) of the forum. This
  includes behavior.
• Stop flaming, keep the board friendly.
• Moderators can move, lock, edit and pin
  discussions.
• They can ban users.

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Review of literature

• Plenty on computer mediated communication.
• Focuses on usability or identity.
• Usenet groups, America Online forums, services
  such as myspace or facebook.
• Very few studies on online news forums.

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Review of literature

• All studies from an outside, academic point of
  view.
• None from a journalist insider.

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My study

• Looked at moderation of the online news forums of
  the Journal-Tribune, a medium-sized newspaper in
  a midwest town.
• Size of paper was chosen because typically they
  do not have a lot of online resources.
• Didnt have firm research questions in mind when
  I went into the study. I wanted the questions to
  come from the immersion.

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Forum background

• Forums were started in 2001.
• More than 3,000 registered users, although about
  100 post regularly.
• Contains more than 31,000 threads, 1,536 topics.
• Consistently ranks as the second or third most
  popular feature of the Web site. 16 posts a day.

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Forum background

• Free, open to anyone.
• Real identity need not be disclosed.
• Four moderators and an administrator.
• Subset of main news site.

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Methods

• Participant-observation.
• Interviews.
• Document analysis.
• Autoethnography.

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Autoethnography?

• Provides a unique perspective from a journalistic
  point of view.
• May illustrate differences between culture of
  news producers and news consumers.
• Admit my own biases as a researcher come clean.

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Methods

• Immersed myself in the forums daily for at least
  one hour a day.
• Was granted access to back-door areas, including
  moderator-only forums.
• Interviewed four people.
• Threads were saved as PDFs and coded and
  categorized, looking for metaphors.

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Methods

• Threads were viewed for moderation events.
• Reaction from public about moderation was also
  noted.
• Moderator-only forum was observed to view
  communication of standards among moderators.
• Documents such as Terms of Service, Netiquette
  Statement, e-mails analyzed.

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Analysis

• Root-metaphor analysis was used.
• Interaction on Internet is a metaphor.
• Viewed forum has a evolving gestalt.
• Divergent world views caused conflict.

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Analysis

• Moderators feel they are doing a public service.
• Moderators believe they are cops, parents,
  teachers, principals.
• Moderators find the position stressful but
  rewarding.
• Moderators view many users as children.

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Analysis

• Users believe moderators are extension of
  newspaper organization, and moderate based on
  hidden agendas from news coverage.
• Users believe they have a right to free speech,
  even if that speech is hateful.
• Users complain about inconsistent moderation.
• Users often want moderators to judge truth of
  content.

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Analysis

• Moderators frequently have an impression of a
  moderator identity. Consider it work. Usually
  have a second identity for play.
• Moderators say they watch behavior only.
• Moderation techniques spark different reactions
  and had escalation.

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Analysis

• Techniques include editing a thread, posting a
  message, deleting a topic, moving a topic,
  locking a thread.
• Moving and locking threads worked best.
• Deleting thread or topic caused most outrage.

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Analysis

• Forum participants frequently disagreed with
  moderation, would attempt to call attention to
  their plight or circumvent the moderation.
• Springer effect Forum users concerned that
  moderation would go to far, making forums boring.
• Moderation has a positive effect. Forum still
  continues to be popular even though alternative
  forums have opened.

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Strengths of study

• Immersive qualities.
• Explores area ignored by scholarship.
• Provides a unique viewpoint.
• Gives insights into mindset of moderators.
• Possible help to other news organizations.

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Weaknesses

• Time.
• Small interview sample.
• No direct interviews from non-moderators.
• Large topic.
• Unique viewpoint.

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Future directions

• Quantitative survey on attitudes toward
  moderation using Survey Monkey.
• Comparison of other forums of similar size.
• More exemplars.
• More interviews.