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This paper examines flaming in general and political flaming in particular (in news online comment sections) as a form of discursive hostility that has become a trend in the modern world of cyber-bullying to provoke an argument online and escalate verbal attacks that create a toxic environment. The object of study is the emotionally charged linguistic units that uncover the implied intents of political verbal aggression through adversarial language. Case study methodology, employed in the research, enables to analyse verbal strategies employed in online news comments, particularly to disclose that emotionally charged, negatively connoted words and phrases significantly outweigh the neutral ones, exemplifying highly emotive, confrontational rhetoric that constructs an antagonistic discourse and fosters delegitimization and alarmism. The consequences of political flaming are grave – spread of false information, increase of hostility among individuals and groups which undermine proper political dialogue and lead to polarization of communities and society at large.
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Muradian et al. (2025) studied this question.
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