The Relationship Among Reviewers' Anonymity,Civility,Credibility And Persuasiveness In The News Comment Section Of Social Platforms

The digital development of news media enriches the ways for users to participate in news.The news comment section of social media provides users with the opportunity to exchange opinions and debate on public affairs.However,the quality of public discussion on social media remains to be discussed.The anonymity of user's identity and the degree of civility of comment tone are key factors that challenge the quality of public discussion.This study focuses on public sphere and social information processing theory,attempting to research how,in the social context of China,the identifiability of reviewers and the degree of civility of comment tone change others' trust in reviewers and their perceptions of the persuasiveness of their comments during the discussion of news events on social media platforms.That is to explore the influence of the anonymity of the news source and the degree of civility of comment tone on the message recipient.Controlled experiment was used in this study.840 subjects were recruited nationwide.The study used 3(anonymity: completely anonymous? user name Indicates the real name? head portrait and username are real)×2(civility: civilized? uncivilized)between-subjects design.It was divided into two experiments with 12 experimental groups in each experiment.The results show that :(1)The absence of clues about the reviewer's identity does not reduce the viewer's evaluation of the reviewer's credibility and persuasiveness;(2)The degree of civility of comment tone is directly proportional to the credibility and persuasiveness of the reviewers;(3)In the process of the influence of uncivilized comments on user credibility and comment persuasiveness on social media platforms,the identity cues of reviewers do not play a moderating role.This shows that the social media platforms represented by Sina Weibo in China,how convincing the views of ordinary users on social news topics can be in the minds of viewers depends on the events discussed,the tone of comments and the content of comments themselves.Compared with western online communities represented by the United States,Chinese netizens are more tolerant of anonymous reviewers and their opinions.This is not a negation of social information processing theory,but an extension of the socio-cultural context on which the theory is based.In addition,compared with the number of user identity clues,the degree of civility of comment tone has a more direct impact on the reviewer's persuasion.Viewers in the comment sections of social media news are more likely to trust opinions expressed in a civilized tone,rather than solely base on the identity clues of the reviewers.Therefore,as the public sphere,social media platforms in China expect civilized and rational discussion.