Verbal aggression in political blogs: A сase of the “Echo of Moscow”

Abstract

Extensive research has been done on verbal aggression and its effects in mass media, public opinion and public policy. Growing verbal aggression in mass media usually corresponds with deepening political confrontation. However, there is a lack of such studies in the context of the Russian mass media, especially assessing verbal aggression in on-line media with quantitative or qualitative content-analysis. This study addresses this gap in research literature. The authors have collected data of 164 posts and almost 40 000 comments from the “Echo of Moscow” web-site in October, 2014 on the topic of the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine. This conflict was reflected in the posts by binary opposition “we” versus “they” and was realized within a fundamental principle of journalistic texts composition — the principle of contrast. The principle includes both the opposition of different views and the opposite assessment of the same fact. Verbal aggressiveness is a dominant communication strategy in the blogs’ posts. Verbal aggression usually includes insulting rhetorics, discreditation of opponents, prosecuting, blaming, threatening, negative forecasting, etc. There are two types of verbal aggression expressions: implicit and explicit. The content analysis carried out by the authors revealed that more then 80 % of posts contains verbal aggression.