Angry tweets. How uncivil and intolerant elite communication affects political distrust and political participation intentions

21.01.2025

Hostile statements by politicians are widespread on social media. A recent study by the University of Vienna, conducted by communication scientists Melanie Saumer, Kateryna Maikovska, Ariadne Neureiter, Anastasia Čepelova, Hendrik van Scharrel, and Jörg Matthes, sheds light on the effects of this language on political participation and mistrust. Different types of hostile language are distinguished; more specifically, this study focuses on the differences between rude and intolerant language and the respective effects on negative emotions, political mistrust and political participation.


Article by Alina Vianne Barr (✉ alina.vianne.barr@univie.ac.at)

Aggressive communication styles of politicians are increasingly spreading in the political sphere worldwide. Hostile language has become an ubiquitous part of today's political communication. Young people are particularly affected, as they spend a lot of time on social media and are therefore frequently confronted with this type of communication. The study focuses on the age group of 16-26-year-olds in order to address this scarcity of research.

Negative emotions, political distrust and voter turnout are often associated with hostile political communication. However, there is little evidence to date on whether impolite speech has a different impact to intolerant speech. The study therefore distinguishes between these two forms of language. Rude language uses a rude or disrespectful tone, vulgar words, insults or offensive language, but refrains from any kind of discrimination. Intolerant language, on the other hand, uses discriminatory implications by portraying minorities and members of marginalized groups as unworthy of basic human rights.

To test whether these theoretical differences in generally hostile language actually have an impact, the following experiment was conducted in the UK: A total of 297 young British people between the ages of 16 and 26 were split into three different experimental groups: Rude politician language, intolerant politician language, or civilized politician language (as a control group). More specifically, participants in each group saw three fictitious tweets from a fictitious politician embedded in a fictitious newspaper article from the BBC news agency. This newspaper article reported on the opinions of politicians on the current issue of national debt in the UK. The politician accused either the government (in rude or polite language, depending on the test group) or migrants (intolerant language) of being responsible for the national debt situation. The negative emotions, political mistrust and motivation for political participation of the participants were then asked on an approval scale of one to seven, with one standing for "not at all" and seven for "very much".

The results of the study show different effects of impolite and intolerant language. Intolerant online language led to stronger negative emotions among young people than polite or impolite language, regardless of the politician's gender. These negative emotions in turn increased both the participants' political mistrust and their motivation to participate in politics. In general, it could therefore be assumed that intolerant, hostile online language not only influences young people's image of politicians, but also their motivation to prevent intolerant politicians from gaining and exercising political power by becoming more politically engaged. This is in contrast to how often hostility is used strategically by politicians. For this very reason, the results of this study are promising, as they show that voters actually want to draw consequences when they have the impression that politicians express themselves too intolerantly.

Study author Melanie Saumer concludes that "the study shows how sensitively political communication should be approached, as the rhetoric 'the more sensational, the better' obviously does not apply. In times of political polarization, it is essential to pay attention to rhetoric and uphold democratic principles. Linguistic differences between hostile language types such as rudeness and intolerance may seem small, but according to our study, they have different effects on participation and trust. Voters are signaling: No tolerance of intolerance."


About the authors

Melanie Saumer is a Predoctoral Researcher in the Department of Communcation at the University of Vienna since 2021.

Kateryna Maikovska is a Predoctoral Researcher in the Department of Communcation at the University of Vienna since 2023.

Ariadne Neureiter is a Researcher (Postdoc since 2023) in the Department of Communcation at the University of Vienna since 2019.

Anastasia Čepelova und Hendrik van Scharrel studied Communication Science at the Department of Communication of the University of Vienna.

Jörg Matthes is Professor of Communication, Chair of Advertising and Vice-Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna.

Publication details

Saumer, M., Maikovska, K., Neureiter, A., Čepelova, A., van Scharrel, H., & Matthes, J. (2024). Angry tweets. How uncivil and intolerant elite communication affects political distrust and political participation intentions. Journal of Information Technology & Politics. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/19331681.2024.2433760