2021/08/15 by Ashwin Rajadesingan, Carolyn Duran, Rajadesingan, Ashwin +5
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Digital Communication and Language #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Media, Religion, Digital Communication #Social Media and Politics #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.06830
openalex publication_date 2021/08/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
While cross-partisan conversations are central to a vibrant democracy, these\nare hard conversations to have, especially in the United States amidst\nunprecedented levels of partisan animosity. Such interactions often devolve\ninto name-calling and personal attacks. We report on a qualitative study of 17\nUS residents who have engaged with outpartisans on Reddit, to understand their\nexpectations and the strategies they adopt in such interactions. We find that\nusers have multiple, sometimes contradictory expectations of these\nconversations, ranging from deliberative discussions to entertainment and\nbanter, which adds to the challenge of finding conversations they like. Through\nexperience, users have refined multiple strategies to foster good\ncross-partisan engagement. Contrary to offline settings where knowing about the\ninterlocutor can help manage disagreements, on Reddit, some users look to\nactively learn as little as possible about their outpartisan interlocutors for\nfear that such information may bias their interactions. Through design probes\nabout hypothetical features intended to reduce partisan hostility, we find that\nusers are actually open to knowing certain kinds of information about their\ninterlocutors, such as non-political subreddits that they both participate in,\nand to having that information made visible to their interlocutors. However,\nmaking other information visible, such as the other subreddits that they\nparticipate in or previous comments they posted, though potentially humanizing,\nraises concerns around privacy and misuse of that information for personal\nattacks.\n