| This paper examined the online phenomenon of complete anonymity during discourse in terms of how it effected (im)politeness strategies, the frequency and manner of swearword usage, and overall sentiment within the community. The overall goal of this examination was to attempt to explain whether or not anonymity caused users to become more vulgar, impolite, insulting, or overall more negative in their speech online. Many sites with communicative goals in mind are designed specifically to discourage or disallow anonymous participation specifically due to a belief that lacking identification causes users to freely insult or offend other users. Specifically, the belief is that anonymity generates a gap and breaks the connection between interlocutors and removes responsibility for one's actions.;Through data collected from 4chan.org and the similarly constructed but non-anonymous site reddit.com, the study examined swearword frequency and usage, insults, and overall Sentiment of comments to first identify trends between sites. These differences between sites were then examined in a more narrow scope on selected subsections of each site. By using the narrower scope, the data aided in the determination of whether or not the preconceived notions of 4chan.org's vulgar and impolite behavior online were truly caused by anonymity, or if another social pressure was involved. |
