The present study examines how exposure to uncivil online comments influences individuals' attitude polarization along political party lines, perceived political polarization of the public, and expectations about public deliberation. Findings show that exposure to uncivil online discussion does not affect attitude polarization, but it does significantly affect the perceived polarization of the public. In addition, exposure to uncivil online discussion leads to lower expectations about public deliberation and such effect of uncivil discussion on expectations of public deliberation was mediated by perceived public polarization but not by attitude polarization.
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Hwang et al. (2014) studied this question.
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