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Online News Discussions: Exploring the Role of User Personality and Motivations for Posting Comments on News

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Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

This study examines personality traits and motivations in association with individuals’ online news comment behavior. A survey of 517 participants indicated that those who were more agreeable and narcissistic were motivated for posting comments on online news. Motivations including informing, getting feedback, and exhibitionism predicted the frequency of posting on news comment sections, while social connection was a major predictor of commenting on the news shared in social media. Implications for using this online opinion-posting mechanism are discussed.