ABOUT DEDIS
DELIBERATIVE DISCUSSIONS IN THE SOCIAL WEB
Online Discussions: A House of Trolls?
Commenting on the news currently is one of the most widespread forms of citizen participation online. Research has shown that high-quality discussions in comment sections can provide additional information for journalists, promote tolerance among citizens and increase their willingness to engage politically.
However, currently, high degrees of incivility and hostility in the comment sections threaten a deliberative and inclusive discussion atmosphere. Journalists are increasingly overburdened with moderating uncivil comments.
But what can providers of online discussions and users do to improve the quality of debates in the comment sections and make them a place where respectful and constructive exchange of views is possible?
Improving the Quality of Online Discussions
How can the quality and impact of public user discussions on political issues in social media be improved? With DEDIS, we try to provide answers to this question.
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Online discussions often suffer from hate comments, insults, or false information. Therefore, as a first step, we investigate how moderators of online discussions can intervene in comment sections to promote constructive debates and create a comfortable discussion climate that encourages users to participate.
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In a second step, we will explore new ways to summarize online discussions so that users, journalists, and politicians can get a quick overview of what happened in discussions in comment sections.
Our measures and findings we will be implemented in software that supports journalists and community managers in moderating and structuring the discussions.
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Contributions for a Digital Society
DEDIS aims at developing strategies and computer-supported systems that help journalists and community managers moderate and structure online discussions. These strategies and systems will be tested in cooperation with industry partners. DEDIS also aims at supporting society in countering hate and misinformation in online discussions.
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The results of the project will illustrate how a more constructive culture of online discussions and participation can be created. Additionally, our results will support politics and news media organizations in making sense of political online discussions. The results of the project should thus promote constructive dialogue between different actors and a respectful cooperation from which society as a whole profits.