The Management of Uncivil and Hateful User Comments in Austrian News Media

Abstract

Almost every news media outlet in Austria offers a comments section on their websites and/or on their social media pages. A growing problem in these frequently used forums is the posting by some users of uncivil and hateful speech, which must be dealt with by the news media outlets and their community management. Based on 39 semi-structured interviews with community managers and journalist-moderators, this study indicates that the approach of Austrian news media outlets to user comments differs between their websites and their social media channels; the provision of space for user comments on websites seeks the normative objective of serving the community and promoting the formation and exchange of opinions, whereas comments sections on social media often follow commercial interests. Differences between news media are primarily due to the size of the community management teams and thus depend on human resources.