Ashley Muddiman, Ph.D.
ashley.muddiman@ku.edu
University of Kansas
Research Interests
Political Communication
Experimental Research
Research Methods & Research Design
Public Opinion
Incivility
Digital Journalism
Media Effects
Countries of Interest
United States
My Research:
Dr. Ashley Muddiman earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research broadly explores political media effects. More specifically, she studies political incivility, including citizens’ perceptions of incivility as well as the effects of political incivility in online settings. She also is a faculty research associate with the Center for Media Engagement (CME), which is housed at the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work with CME has explored shifting norms in digital news spaces, for instance how journalists and news users engage with partisan incivility in online comments, how journalists can intervene in comment sections to make them a bit less uncivil, and how clickbait headlines set expectations for news users. Her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, International Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, and the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, among other publications.
This research investigates how digital news headlines influence contemporary news information seeking. In two studies (a lab experiment and a field test), we examine how the presentation of news information—traditional, summary news headlines or clickbait, curiosity news headlines—influences the attitudinal and behavioral components of news seeking. Study 1 models the news-seeking process, finding that summary headlines heighten perceptions of headline information adequacy, which increase expectations that an article will provide clear information, which in turn increase anticipated audience engagement with news compared to some curiosity headlines. Study 2 determines that individuals’ selection behavior on nine local newspaper websites also favors summary headlines. The findings encourage researchers to employ information-seeking mechanisms in understanding news selection decisions.
Content analysis of large-scale textual data sets poses myriad problems, particularly when researchers seek to analyze content that is both theoretically derived and context dependent. In this piece, we detail the approach we developed to tackle the analysis of the context-dependent content of political incivility. After describing our manually validated organic dictionaries approach, we compare the method to others we could have used and then replicate the method in a different—but still context-dependent—project examining political issue content on social media. We conclude by summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the approach and offering suggestions for future research that can refine and expand the method.
As interest in political incivility has grown, scholarly conceptualizations of incivility have diverged, often centering on politeness theory or deliberative theory, but rarely on both. The current project addresses this problem by empirically investigating a two-dimensional incivility model. Two experiments test individuals’ perceptions of uncivil interactions among political figures, finding that (a) personal-level incivility (impoliteness) and public-level incivility (lack of deliberativeness and reciprocity) are distinct concepts, (b) personal-level incivility is perceived as more uncivil than public-level incivility, and (c) political figures from a person’s own political party are perceived as more civil than others. Future researchers can use this two-dimensional model to bring coherence to the incivility literature and more thoroughly investigate the effects of public-level incivility.
Partisan incivility is prevalent in news comments, but we have limited insight into how journalists and news users engage with it. Gatekeeping, cognitive bias, and social identity theories suggest that journalists may tolerate incivility while users actively promote partisan incivility. Using 9.6 million comments from The New York Times, we analyze whether the presence of uncivil and partisan terms affects how journalists and news users engage with comments. Results show that partisanship and incivility increase recommendations and the likelihood of receiving an abuse flag. Swearing increases the likelihood of a comment being rejected and reduces the chances of being highlighted as a NYT Pick. These findings suggest that journalists and news users interact with partisan incivility differently, and that some forms of incivility may be promoted or tacitly accepted in comments.
Researchers condemn the effects of news but have only recently turned their attention to determining the extent to which individuals engage with news. Within the context of online uncivil news, the current project investigates whether negativity always increases engagement with news. The results of two experiments demonstrate that civility in the news increased news engagement, especially compared to news with the most incivility. News articles that included multiple types of incivility and news articles that prompted individuals to perceive that an out-group political party was behaving uncivilly discouraged people from engaging with online news. The studies contribute theoretically to negativity bias and incivility research and signal that negativity does not always attract clicks.
Drawing from the stereotype content model, we examine how people respond to likeminded and counter-attitudinal political comments appearing after a news article. We experimentally test how citizens behave when they are able to click on one of three different buttons posted next to others’ comments—“Like,” “Recommend,” or “Respect.” In the experiment, political attitudes predicted button clicking, but the button label affected the strength of the relationship. In some instances, people clicked on fewer buttons associated with likeminded comments and more buttons associated with counter-attitudinal comments when the button was labeled with “Respect” as opposed to “Like” or “Recommend.” The pattern of results for the “Recommend” button differed across two issues. The results suggest that political comments can trigger stereotypical reactions. Although the “Like” button is well known, news organizations interested in promoting less partisan behaviors should consider using a “Respect” button rather than the “Like” or “Recommend” button in comment sections.
Local CBS affiliate overviewed results of a study that found people interact with civil news.
Discussed use of media and digital media in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Discussed online news comments.
Mentioned in an article overviewing a panel discussion related to fake news and politics.
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