Political Hashtags & the Lost Art of Democratic Discourse

In this work, we investigate whether and how the presence of political hashtags in social media news articles influences the way people discuss news content. Specifically, we examine how political hashtags in news posts act as a design characteristic that affects the quality of online discourse. We use a randomized control experiment to assess how the presence versus absence of political hashtags (particularly the most prevalently used #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter) in social media news posts shapes discourse across a general audience (n=3205). Key findings show differences in topical focus, emotional tone of discourse, and rhetorical styles between commenters who were shown news posts with political hashtags versus those shown news posts without the hashtags. Compared to the control group, those shown hashtagged news posts heavily focus on the politics of the hashtag, use more words associated with fear, anger, and disgust in their comments, and exhibit black-and-white rhetoric and less emotionally temperate expressions in their arguments.