{"id":88460,"date":"2016-02-25T11:41:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T16:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2016\/02\/25\/heavy-commenting-activity-concentrated-among-a-minority-of-users\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:15:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:15:14","slug":"heavy-commenting-activity-concentrated-among-a-minority-of-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2016\/02\/25\/heavy-commenting-activity-concentrated-among-a-minority-of-users\/","title":{"rendered":"5. Heavy commenting activity concentrated among a minority of users"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Most<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

The engagement level of Reddit users taking part in the candidate discussions over the three months studied echoes earlier research about other digital spaces. The majority of authors<\/a> offered just a single comment<\/a> naming a candidate, while fewer came back with multiple comments over the course of the study.<\/p>\n\n

Fully six-in-ten of almost 100,000 authors posted just a single comment naming a presidential candidate. A quarter posted three or more.<\/p>\n\n

Undoubtedly there may be instances where a user added additional comments without mentioning a candidate directly. But these findings reinforce much of what we have found in previous studies: A 2015 study<\/a> of local news habits found that just a small share (less than one-fifth) of commenters to Facebook pages of news outlets left more than two comments. Another study found that on Twitter<\/a> a small core of active users (12%) tweeted 100 times or more during a four week period. Among all social media users, we have found<\/a> that just a small fraction say they have posted videos or photos they themselves have taken of a news event.<\/p>\n\n

Repeat commenters more likely to discuss multiple candidates and parties \u2013 and to be downvoted<\/h3>\n\n
\"Repeat<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Highly engaged users \u2013 those who left three or more comments \u2013 tended to leave more than just three comments, as well as participate in multiple forums. About one-in-five of these commenters (21%) left more than 10 comments naming a candidate over the three months studied, and nearly half (45%) posted a comment naming at least one candidate in three or more subreddits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Users who left three or more comments differed in terms of the number of candidates and parties they mentioned. Among these active commenters, 90% mentioned multiple candidates, with about two-thirds (64%) mentioning three or more. This far outpaces the 38% of all users who mentioned multiple candidates (19% of whom mentioned three or more).<\/p>\n\n

This is also true at the party level. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of these highly engaged commenters named candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties, compared with only about a quarter (26%) of all users in our analysis.<\/p>\n\n

\"Repeat<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Data on upvoting and downvoting<\/a> behavior reinforce the notion that repeat commenters operate differently on Reddit than do one-time commenters.<\/p>\n\n

Overall, 15% of authors had one or more comments naming a presidential candidate voted down. However, among repeat commenters, that jumps to nearly four-in-ten (36%). This could be because such commenters are more passionate on the subject and thus more likely to inspire a reaction, or it may more simply be that posting multiple times presents more opportunities to have a comment voted down.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The engagement level of Reddit users taking part in the candidate discussions over the three months studied echoes earlier research about other digital spaces. The majority of authors offered just a single comment naming a candidate, while fewer came back with multiple comments over the course of the study. 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