Ethnic Insults in YouTube Comments

Social Contagion and Selection Effects During the German “Refugee Crisis

Bibliographic Data

ID7772170
AuthorsChristoph Spörlein (0000-0002-6148-9490, Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, corresponding author), Elmar Schlueter (0000-0003-3880-4111, Institute of Sociology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany)
Year2021
Volume37
Issue3
Pages411-428
Publication date2021-05-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0266-7215 • E-ISSN: 1468-2672
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/esr/jcaa053
OpenAlexW3106588052
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited59

In this article, we investigate the extent to which ethnic insults propagate through comment networks in YouTube videos from four German political talk shows with the largest audience reach. We argue that comments using ethnic insults signal social norms and embolden others to emulate offensive behaviour, therefore potentially contributing the contagiousness of insulting commenting. Moreover, periods of highly salient intergroup conflict (i.e. sexual assaults and terrorist attacks), may further reduce inhibitions to publicly post insulting content further multiplying the spread of this behaviour. To evaluate our claims, we construct a repeated cross-sectional dataset from the comment networks in YouTube videos as well as a pseudo-panel of highly active users which is used to gauge the impact of social selection. Results indicate that the use of ethnic insults in online comment sections appears socially contagious. Specifically, we find that a larger presence of ethnic insults in preceding comments increases the prevalence of insulting comments by 2 percentage points which increases to 7 percentage points in the aftermath of violent incidents. However, findings based on the pseudo-user panel do show that using ethnic insults is socially contagious thus suggesting that the patterns found for the full sample are largely a function of social selection processes

Ethnic group · German · Offensive · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Selection (genetic algorithm) · Social media · Computer Science · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · History · Law · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology