Newspaper-based bloggers and commenters are far less polarized and more civil than their independently-based counterparts

Independently hosted political blogs have been with us for more than a decade, and have become forums for commentary and discussion with a variety of styles and formality. These have more recently been joined by newspaper based blogs such as at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. But how does commentary and discussion differ between these two types of blogs? By analyzing over 2,300 blog posts and comments across both types of blog, Elizabeth Suhay and her co-authors find that those who write and comment on traditional political blogs are more likely to express more extreme political opinions, and are also likely to be uncivil in their discussions. Writers and commenters at newspaper-based blogs, on the other hand, tend to be far less polarized politically, and show a greater degree of civility in their discussions.