1. Anonymity and Conflict in
Metafilter.com:
The relationship between identity
performance and discourse strategies
Kris M. Markman, Ph.D.
University of Memphis
Kumi Ishii, Ph.D.
Western Kentucky University
IR 12: Performance & Participation
October 11, 2011 Seattle, WA
Monday, October 17, 11

2. Background
Early CMC research linked lack of nonverbal cues &
anonymity to conflict, hostility & aggression (“flaming”)
Later research emphasized strategic self-presentation &
hyperpersonal aspects
Dearth of research on management of conflict in online
communities and identity performance
Research Question: What is the relationship between
participants’ degree of anonymity and their discursive
strategies in online conflict?
Monday, October 17, 11

3. Anonymity & Identity
Performance
Anonymity: the “degree to which a communicator
perceives the message source as unknown or
unspecified’’ (Anonymous, 1998, p. 387)
Operationalized as amount of self-disclosure on
profile page
All MetaFilter members are pseudonymous
Pseudonyms (user names) may be associated
with range of personally identifying information
Monday, October 17, 11

4. MetaFilter Profiles
Monday, October 17, 11

5. Data and Method
2009 MetaTalk thread discussing a proposed site
change
511 unique members, 2240 comments
Profile pages coded for identity information
Comments coded for discursive strategies:
3 categories coded by human coders
(nonverbal cues, address terms, quoting)
Linguistic Inquiry & Word Count (LIWC) software
used to generate frequencies in a range of
categories
Monday, October 17, 11

6. Profile Coding
Percent
Category
disclosed
First & last name 27%
Ambiguous or partial name 28%
Email address 44%
URL 38%
Likely picture 21%
Latitude/longitude link 65%
Some location information 61%
Likely occupation 29%
Age 25%
Relationship status 36%
About text 60%
IM services M=.3, max=5
Social applications M=1.9, max=19
Monday, October 17, 11

7. Population
M=11.45; SD= 7.98
Anonymity Score
range 0 (high anon) - 38 (low anon)
M= 4.02 years; SD= 2.39 years
Membership Time
range 2.86 weeks - 10.25 years
Engagement with MeFi M= 9.8 comments; SD= 12.77
(avg. comments/wk) range .02 - 81.96 comments
Monday, October 17, 11

8. What is the relationship between
participants’ degree of anonymity and their
discursive strategies in online conflict?
*Anonymity was negatively related to use of address
terms and nonverbal cues, and positively related to use
of positive emotion words
*Most anonymous and most identifiable groups had
identical means on negative emotion
Monday, October 17, 11

9. Anonymity and discourse
strategies
High ANON (M=.14, SD=.266)
Address terms Low ANON (M=.22, SD=.318)
t(269)=-2.218, p<.05
High ANON (M=.25, SD=.343)
Cue use Low ANON (M=.37, SD=.393)
t(269)=-2.65, p<.01
High ANON (M=5.58, SD=3.4)
Positive emotion
Low ANON (M=4.68, SD=2.93)
words
t(269)=2.335, p<.05
Monday, October 17, 11

10. Discourse style and ....?
Membership time was related to anonymity (r=.
21, p<.001), but not to any discourse variables
Engagement was marginally related to:
quoting (τb=.183, p<.001)
address terms (τb=.132, p<.001)
swearing (τb=.154, p<.001)
anger (τb=.105, p<.01)
Monday, October 17, 11

11. Engagement and
discourse strategies
High ENGAGE (M=.37, SD=.357)
Quoting Low ENGAGE (M=.18, SD=.331)
t(253)=-4.399, p<.001)
High ENGAGE (M=.876, SD=1.36)
Anger Low ENGAGE (M=.552, SD=1.06)
t(253)=-2.118, p<.05
High ENGAGE (M=86.85, SD=74.1)
Word count Low ENGAGE (M=110.4, SD=102.27)
t(253)=2.104, p<.05
Monday, October 17, 11

12. Anonymity &
Engagement
ANONGRP * ENGAGEGRP Crosstabulation
Count
ENGAGEGRP
1 2 3 4 Total
ANONGRP 1 50 34 29 26 139
2 29 31 31 29 120
3 26 37 29 28 120
4 23 26 39 44 132
Total 128 128 128 127 511
The most anonymous users were more likely to be
the least engaged; the most engaged users were
more likely to be the least anonymous
(χ2(9,511)=21.602, p=.01)
Monday, October 17, 11

13. Whither the GRAR?
Overall LIWC data showed relatively low levels of
negative emotion, anger & swearing
GRAR is in the eye of the beholder
Most engaged people were the most identifiable,
but also displayed the most “aggression”
More anonymous people displayed more
positive emotion
Context matters!
Monday, October 17, 11

14. Thank you!
Contact: k.markman@memphis.edu
Twitter: @DiscourseMarker
Monday, October 17, 11