Effect of Online Political Incivility on Message Persuasiveness: Experimental Evidence from Japan

Persuasiveness is an important part in political communication. While some previous studies investigated the effect of elites' political incivility on a messages' persuasiveness, the effect of incivility from citizens on persuasiveness is less investigated. In the present study, I hypothesized that an uncivil political comment is less persuasive than a civil one. I also proposed hypotheses regarding moderating effects of political interest and the status of agreement with a message. To test the hypotheses, I conducted an online survey experiment using a Japanese sample. As a result, I did not find evidence that an uncivil political comment is less persuasive than a civil comment on average. Meanwhile, I found that those who had agreeing attitudes with the presented comment before treatment were more likely to be negatively influenced by incivility than those who did not.