Political forums

When posed with the challenge to find an online place where I could attempt to analyze the interactions in terms of what we have learned so far, I almost immediately decided to find a political forum. Normally, I see political discussion as a quick step to frustration and anger, and I mostly try to avoid this. My search for political forums led me to itsallpolitics.com where I spent most of my time on the United States message board.

Before I even began reading through the threads, I thought that some of the "big five" traits (like agreeableness and openness) would be easy to predict. For example, I figured there would be a low level of agreeableness as a whole forum (not members as individual posters) due to the controversial nature of most threads, and I thought that openness to newcomers would also be low (based on the assumption that forums are online communities of people with similar interests, as well as the assumption that this type of space has allowed them to get to know each other to some degree). My assumptions alone show that I operate similarly to the Hyperpersonal model because, from what little cues I had, I reasoned that the forum would behave a certain way.

For the purposes of this exercise, I've decided to evaluate the forum as a whole, but also do some analysis of individual posts, and with my above assumptions in mind, these were my findings in terms of the big five:

Agreeableness: This particular forum had threads which presented individual posts as less agreeable than other threads. For example, there was more agreeableness displayed in a thread about Media influences on children than there was about global warming. However, it varied among posters (some used emoticons to decrease the severity of a comment, while others sometimes resorted to insults).

Openness: In the instance that a new poster contributes to a thread (and signifies that they are indeed new to the board), most posters respond to the poster with welcoming messages (i.e. "Look forward to reading your posts!" or "Welcome to the board!"). As the new poster's arguments are established, however, openness is either high (if the poster says something another poster agrees with) or low (if the poster says something another poster disagrees with, or if the new poster's grammar is of low-quality). Attacks on grammar were frequent if another poster disagreed with the grammatically inept poster ("You can't even spell, why should I listen to you?").

Extraversion: For the most part, the degree of extraversion was moderate to high. This makes sense because most of the members of this space have sought it out as a way to discuss their political views on controversial subjects. However, while the opinions themselves may be extraverted, the delivery may be more introverted ("Well, I don't really know, but maybe..." instead of "This happens because...").

Neuroticism: Most posters display a low level of neuroticism. Again, this goes along with the idea of seeking out this sort of aggressive conversation. The posters know that the likelihood of saying something everybody agrees with is slim, so they are mostly prepared to argue or back up their claims. As with extraversion, the delivery of the message may suggest a level of neuroticism, but most do not display a very large amount.

And lastly, conscientiousness: This plays a large part into how posters present their messages. As I mentioned with extraversion, users who are less inclined to start a fight will type their post more passively ("well, it seems that..." as opposed to "the only reason this happens is because..."). Also, to make sure that their message is less often misconstrued, many posters use the emoticons offered to them (rolling eyes to showcase irony, smiley faces to showcase humor or happiness, etc.), so it does appear that there is a high degree of conscientiousness in most posts.

Ultimately, I'd say that my above assumptions were mostly correct (thus confirming my use of the Hyperpersonal model) when applied to the forum as a whole, but they could also vary quite widely when looking at each poster individually (which makes analyzing an online space much more complex).