Gender & Trolling: The Relationship on Twitter Sharon Bahr, Sadeq Jan, Alexandra Musi & Lauren Spittler

St. Edwards University

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 2 Introduction The intrigue of anonymous and fast online interaction has steadily been growing since the internet became public use in the early nineties. With the advent of the internet, social media websites became increasingly popular in the twenty-first century. The use of social media has coined many new phrases, such as cyber-bully and troller. Through social media, society is faced with an issue that had previously been confined to face-to-face interaction, bullying. Bullying on the internet has become a pastime for bored children who want to cyber-bully a person that they know or for bored adults who want to start riots on online discussion forums. Social media culture is defined by the changing and growing aspects of the internet and the way that it changes is directly correlated with gender. The way that gender affects social media use in various social media sites are critical is concluding whether or not cyber-bullying and trolling practices have gendered specific behaviors. Through social media people have found easy ways to communicate with people all over the world, including the people that inspire them. Because of social media, people now have a direct way to talk to their favorite celebrities, and also to troll on the ones the do not have favorable feelings towards. This study seeks to analyze trolling behaviors in tweets directed at the both male and female celebrities on Twitter and examine the content that is used for each gender. Based on celebrity perceptions there could be a difference based on gender in how people troll on them through social media. Literature Review While social media can be a means to sharing with people online, the lack of face-to-face communication as well as the anonymity of the Internet has also provided a way for people to

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 3 interact with others in a negative way. Cyber bullying has become a problem with the rise of technology but also the new trend of trolling. Many people have personal definitions of the term, but there have been a few studies to try to establish a more universal definition of the world. Jenny Arendholz (2013) explains and defines what the term trolling means in relation to online message boards. She describes it as purposefully misleading somebody online with the intention of upsetting other people involved in the interaction. Arendolz also calls trolling a game where the only person aware of the fact that it is going on is the person causing the disturbance. Though she explains how trolls function within communities on online message boards, she states that most people who participate in these forums engage with others to find people with like interests and can find an authentic connection. Trolls do not base their message on fact but rather use creative means to deceive people within the group. Claire Hardaker (2010) conducted a study to build an academic definition of the word trolling. By looking at user definitions of the word Hardaker found four characteristics of trolling: deception, aggression, disruption, and success. Based off of these characteristics the working definition suggested in her study is: A troller is a CMC user who constructs the identity of sincerely wishing to be part of the group in question, including professing, or conveying pseudo-sincere intentions, but whose real intention(s) is/are to cause disruption and/or to trigger or exacerbate conflict for the purposes of their own amusement. (p. 237) This definition allows the term to become more universal and allows for more in-depth studies of the phenomenon. In a study by Herring, Job-Sluder, Scheckler, and Barab (2002), a member of an online feminist discussion forum attempted to troll to disrupt the discussion. The troller was successful in disrupting the conversation for a period of 8 weeks. They found the success of the troller to be attributed to three definitional criteria:

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 4 1. Messages from a sender who appears outwardly sincere. 2. Messages designed to attract predictable responses or flames. 3. Messages that waste a groups time by provoking futile argument. Trolling vs. Cyberbullying They also offer suggestions for preventing trollers from interrupting online communities including block messages and educating users about troller. The study found that feminist and other nonmainstream online message boards are vulnerable and there must be a balance of anonymity for safety and the prevention of disruptive users. Trolling is a particularly recent trend in online activity but cyber-bullying has been around since the internets inception. The terms trolling and cyber-bullying are so similar that people often times think they mean the same thing but the terms have some distinct differences. A study by S. Nicol (2012) examined the difference between the terms cyber-bullying and trolling. Nicol examines the differences between cyber-bullying and trolling in internet culture, as well as the effect that those actions have on the victims of each. Nicol (2012) finds that those who troll or cyber bully justify their actions using freedom of speech but in actuality it is a direct attack on freedom of expression (Fraser). This is particularly useful because it breaks down what the differences between the two terms are, as they are often thought of as synonymous. Cyber-bullying, according to Nicol, is when someone repeatedly uses social media to cause distress or harm to someone they know. Trolling is the act of deliberately trying to start a fight using social media but it is often anonymous. In order to better understand the act of anonymous and distressing bullying online Nicol profiles both the bullies and the victims. Oftentimes, he found, the bullies tend to suffer

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 5 from low self-esteem, low academic ability or performance, and problems at home. Online victims of cyber bullying tended to be those who are targets of offline bullying. Anonymity can offer both positive and negative effect within an online community. Rosenberry (2011) did a study to analyze if users felt that anonymity helped or hindered online discussions. He found that participants did find that the discussions were negative and it disrupted the conversation. But even with those views, 80% of participants were still in favor of keeping anonymity and viewed it positively. Users claimed that the anonymity allowed the discussion to be move freely and be livelier. Though anonymity brought about negativity within the online community, most users find it to allow a better conversation. Anonymity is one of the greatest factors in the rising trend of trolling but the act of online bullying is directly correlated with gender. In order to study the effect of gender in cyber-bullying Snell and Englander (2010) surveyed undergraduate students and examined. In result of the study, they concluded that female social media users were more inclined to cyber-bullying actions and behaviors. According to Englander in 2009, 44% percent of Massachusetts schools characterized the bullying in their school as occurring daily or more often (Englander, 2009). The reason that females tend to bully in a social media context is because males are frequently involved in physical forms of bullying while females use a relational method. In a2008 study, Englander found that most online bullies attributed their behavior to anger (65%)...a joke(35%)..or for no reason. Gender and Social Media Recent studies on social media usage confirm that there are differences in the ways that the two genders express themselves online. Impression management by online means is

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 6 differently acquired by males and females. Men and women post different pictures, status, or tweets on these social media sites in order to save face but in extremely different ways. That being said, there are many mediums in the social media community. Social media refers to the various forms of electronic communications (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (Webster). Much like trolling, social media is a relatively new and broad topic. Any site online in which people engage in communication can be seen as a social media site. Thus, one could say that survey taking, opinion polls, and even online shopping can be considered a social media practice. In order to test this theory Smith (2008) conducted a study to examine the correlation between online survey taking and various demographic factors including gender. Studies showed that trends still exist with regard to who responds to the surveys, at least with regard to traditional models of survey administration. Gender online survey wasnt clear enough. In this study, a record linking technique was employed to compare the gender of online survey respondents directly to available demographic data of all members of a sampling frame. The result of this study was that the researchers should not assume that the response behavior towards the online surveys, and data gathered from online surveys are free of gender bias. Bassam (2010) came to a similar conclusion. Gender is an important factor to the behavior and attitude of online shopping participants on the online community. Very few studies have shown the differences in online shopping attitude. Empirical testing has shown three distinct components of online shopping attitude and significant gender difference in all three components dealing with attitude. The result also has shown that the largest gender difference is in the cognitive attitude. Representing that females value the utility of online shopping is less

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 7 than the male. This study is significant because understanding gender behavior online offers insight into whether if gender determines a different way of trolling online. As in Englanders (2009) study, Bassam and Smith regard gender as extremely important to online behavior and relational and cognitive functions as the basis for their reason of that gendered difference. Knowing that gender does play a role in online identity, social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest all have users who portray their gender in specific ways using impression management and media. In order to find gendered practices in online usage Clipson, Wilson, and DeFrene (2012) examine the differences of gender in social networking practices and attempt to identify gender specific actions using Facebook, Twitter, and through text. Clipson, Et al. built their research on a study by Comscore, Inc (2012) which found that female social media users made up 76% of the online community whereas male user only made up 70%. By use of a class study they attempted to make online users aware of the various differences in gender online behavior by finding instances of burnout in men more than women. They quantified this research by a Forbes article researching the people who use Facebook, which are currently 57% women (Groudreau 2010). Hence, the fact that women are on social media sites more often than men may simply provide increased opportunities for them to engage in trolling behaviors. Since more than half the population of Facebook is comprised of female users, the ways in which those female users express themselves on the site is different than their male counterparts. Social websites like Facebook enables users to upload self-created images therefore it is the interest to see how gender is performed in this area. Rose, Mackey-Kallis, Shyles, et al. (2012) extended the research on gender differences in impression management. In both interpersonal communication and social media, to involve gender specific traits that is part of

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 8 young men and womens impression management. Rose, et al. concluded that women and men post very different pictures on the web. Women tend to post pictures that highlight their beauty, most likely a close up picture of themselves. Men are more likely to post pictures of themselves doing an action or a picture of themselves at a place or event. The online social networking site MySpace has received more hits and more media coverage than any of its social networking counterparts, including Facebook and Friendster (Stern 2007). This was true in 2007 because it is one of the most visited sites on the Web due to its features which allows its users to create media and create identity easily while sharing their interests with other users and to the whole world. MySpace allows young men and women to upload their pictures and chat with people with whom they have never met. This article by Stern (2007) is dated but it talks about the use of online practices by young girls that invite unwanted attention. The problem with online identity is that it is predominantly anonymous, and unfortunately young girls who find themselves on social media sites can fall prey to sexual predators. While this issue of sexual promiscuity is not the focus of the present study, the information is important because it demonstrates how gender plays a role in online anonymity and how society evaluates that behavior. The social media site, Twitter, will be our primary source for our present study specifically because the line between cyber-bullying and trolling is blurred on Twitter. In a discussion forum when someone trolls they are not directly attacking anyone whereas on Twitter, a hashtag (#) of a celebrity directly leads to that celebrity seeing whatever comment was said about them. If celebrities are public commodities can directly attacking them still be seen as cyber-bullying and how does gender play a part in this? Armstrong and Gao (2011) examined how media platform, coverage area and Twitter tweets influenced male and female mentions in news stories. They found that there was a positive relationship between male and female

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 9 portrayals in tweets and also in news content. Apparently male mentions had a greater chance to appear in national news stories than specific regions and more frequently than female mentions in print media. Overall, based on their findings, Armstrong and Gao found that Twitter is more male skewed yet there are more women and men using Twitter and both male and female tweet at the same rate. They found were that more tweets emphasizing men will become increasingly male-skewed, providing less space for female perspectives and will therefore not attract more female followers. David John (2012) examines Twitter and Facebook, however, the information that will be used is mainly related to Twitter. The authors examined how Twitter is being used and for what purpose. The usage of both of these mediums is important to understand in order to conduct the research about how men and women represent themselves on Twitter. The results showed that individuals who use Twitter for informational purposes and these people are typically older and do not necessarily want to socialize. Also, they found that information from Facebook may be obtained socially (by asking other users), but the information sought on Twitter might be more cognitively based, such as academic or political information that you would need to read the source materials, and links are often tweeted. Equally, the correlations with conscientiousness showed that informational use of Twitter may be goal-directed, maybe seeking information relevant to work or study; then for Facebook, information seeking may be the manifestation of procrastination. The way that the genders use social media is also influenced by their proclivity for celebrity entertainment. Twitter, our main social media of focus, is a site that allows fans to follow celebrities and get a glimpse of their everyday lives. James (2011) discussed the dynamic between celebrities and their followers. If the fans engage in relationships with each other based

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 10 on ethics of care, the relationship between celebrity and fan is best conceived of as rule-bound. James then goes into relating this to what Kant would call an inherently mutually usury relationship between celebrity and fan. According to this article the fan is arguably using the celebrity for purposes of fantasizing or as a hobby. The celebrity, on the other hand, uses the fans as a means for income, popularity, visibility and buzz. The article goes further into this relationship between fan and celebrity by even giving examples of common tweets. Lin, Han, Jonathon and Fang (2012) identified and analyzed five major personality traits, which were extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism were associated with specific linguistic markers, suggesting that personality manifests in microblogs. One of their findings is especially relevant to the present study. Specifically, the authors found that a possible explanation of the observed personality perception results is that microblogging affects the expression of extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness. For example, Twitter encourages people to disclose their inner feelings and share their social activities with others, meaning that all users will appear extraverted to some extent. Similarly, most people tend to tweet about their new experiences or discoveries, giving others the impression that they are open to new experiences. The study sheds light on how personality is manifested in microblogs, and offers an example of utilizing social media for personality and language research. Gender effects behavior on online mediums such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter in various ways. Relational and cognitive behaviors in women are one of the main reasons that women are more inclined to use social media. Because of this, we can hypothesize that women are the main culprit in trolling activities because they are the more likely candidate to be online users. However, reports of online behaviors differ from person to person so subjectivity must be used in further studies. Trolling on social media sites also varies from site to site so the

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 11 correlation between gender, anonymity, and trolling will most likely be found on the social media site, Twitter. Research Questions and Hypothesis Our study will focus on trolling behaviors on celebrities on twitter. Our research questions will be: RQ1: What content is used in trolling on female celebrities on Twitter? RQ2: What content is used in trolling on male celebrities on Twitter? We propose the following hypothesis: H1: Female celebrities will have more cases of trolls that comment on appearance, personality, and relationships Methods The evaluation of tweets from trollers by four chosen celebrities, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Kanye, were examined in this study. These four celebrities were chosen based on a discussion the researchers had about who is a controversial celebrity.These controversial celebrities are both widely discussed and critiqued and are some of the most followed people on Twitter. Rihanna is a celebrity frequently seen in the media. Her tumultuous relationship with fellow artist Chris Brown, who previously assaulted her in 2009, makes her a target for gossip and victim blaming. Also, Rihanna is looked at for her daring and provocative fashion choices that can expose a lot of her body. Along with her fashion choices Rihanna has a very successful singing career and is known for her performances.

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 12

Rihanna currently has over 29 million Twitter followers.

Taylor Swift has been discussed regularly in the media and mainly for the reason of who she has dated/currently dating. Swift is also seen as a fashionable celebrity and her taste in fashion is often talked about. Her songs and performances are known to be about a certain past boyfriends she has mingled with, has proved to be fodder for those who hate on her. Swifts singing career has proved to be successful and her other brands she has been developing makes her that much more exposed to the public.

Taylor Swift currently has over 26 million Twitter followers.

Justin Bieber has been known to have a large fan following and became an overnight sensation after being discovered on YouTube. His singing career has been very successful and his fans even have a special name Beliebers and are proud to be known as obsessive Justin Bieber followers. With all these diehard fans does come negative fans as well. He is currently on world wide tour and his singing performances and erratic behavior is always being discussed. Also, in the media, fairly recently,he and actress Selena Gomez, broke up and are no longer in a romantic relationship. Bieber has many brands that he continues to release (tracks, perfumes ect.) and continues to be talked about by many.

Justin Bieber currently has over 37 million Twitter followers and a good amount of Twitter fan/news pages solely created about Bieber.

Kanye West is notorious for making controversial statements and always seems to be in and out of the media for various reasons. Kanye is a successful rapper who is known for his entertaining performances on and off the stage. His outrageous behavior and relationship with reality television star Kim Kardashian has made him a target for various trollers. He and Kim are

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 13 expecting their first child together so this has caused Kanye to be even more exposed to the public and talked about.

Kanye West has over 9 million Twitter followers.

Considering all of these various aspects about the celebrities has made them key targets for trollers.

According to an article written by Sarah Nicol, Trolling is deliberately trying to distress someone online but usually just to disrupt and often anonymously (Nicol, 3). This purposeful act of making hurtful remarks can be focused on different attributes associated to that celebrity and can attack different aspects of that persons character. Tweets were collected by searching for the celebrity's name in the search browser on Twitter, and by looking at the responses to the content that the celebrities posted themselves. The 400 tweets that were examined, 100 tweets per celebrity, were broken down into six different categories in order to identify what the trollers are tweeting about when harassing the celebrities. Appearance(1) was the first category selected includes tweets focused on the celebrities looks, weight, style ect. Personality(2) was another category that is associated with tweets that are centered around the celebrities character traits. Performance(3) when tweets reference certain concerts, tv appearances, performance in other parts of their life such as a brand they just released ect. Talent(4) this category focuses on trollers tweeting about the celebrities ability to be the artist that they are whether that is in the music, fashion, or business realm ect. Relationships(5) is when the tweets discuss that celebrity along with their significant other, or relationship with the celebrity has with other people. Other(6) this is where the troller just says hurtful remarks without any cause at all. An example of this would be, I hate Kanye, with no

Gender & Trolling on Twitter 14 specific reasoning given. Some tweets have overlap, so a certain tweet might be counted for two or more categories depending on the context of the tweet. Results and outcomes should be examined noting that these tweets are about four specific celebrities that were identified in one way or another as controversial. Also, there were 100 tweets examined from each of the celebrities and therefore these limitations need to be considered and that this is a single case study.

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Gender & Trolling on Twitter 16 Rosenberry, J. (2011). Users Support Online Anonymity Despite Increasing Negativity. Newspaper Research Journal, 32(2), 6-19. Smith, W. G. (2008). Does Gender Influence Online Survey Participation? A Record-Linkage Analysis of University Faculty Online Survey Response Behavior. Online Submission, Snell, P. A., & Englander, E. K. (2010). Cyberbullying Victimization and Behaviors Among Girls: Applying Research Findings in the Field. Journal Of Social Sciences (15493652), 6(4), 508-512. "Social Media". (n.d.). Retrieved from Merrium Webster website: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media Stern, S. (2007). Gender Constructed Online, Stereotypes Reified Offline: Understanding Media Representation of Adolescent Girls on MySpace. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-23.