Online Political Discourse in the Trump Era

TL;DR

This paper analyzes Reddit political discussions from 2007 to 2017, examining trends in civility and complexity, and investigates factors like Trump’s rise, polarization, fake news, and fringe merging affecting discourse quality.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of political discourse trends over a decade and assesses the impact of four key factors on discourse quality.

Findings

Civility and complexity declined over the period.

Trump's rise correlates with increased polarization.

Fake news and fringe merging influence discourse quality.

Abstract

We identify general trends in the (in)civility and complexity of political discussions occurring on Reddit between January 2007 and May 2017 -- a period spanning both terms of Barack Obama's presidency and the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency. We then investigate four factors that are frequently hypothesized as having contributed to the declining quality of American political discourse -- (1) the rising popularity of Donald Trump, (2) increasing polarization and negative partisanship, (3) the democratization of news media and the rise of fake news, and (4) merging of fringe groups into mainstream political discussions.