New Research Paper by Sabine Reich and Marko Bachl

Dr. Sabine Reich and Jun. Prof. Dr. Marko Bachl (FU Berlin) have published new research in Communication Research investigating the impact of sexist incivil comments on women’s discursive participation in political online spaces. The study addresses the paradox of increasing female political visibility alongside persistent gender gaps in online participation.

Employing a preregistered nested-stimuli experiment with a sample of German women, the research tested hypotheses derived from social norms and social role theory. Findings demonstrate that exposure to female politicians does not increase women’s intention to participate in online political discussions (challenging the role model hypothesis). However, exposure to sexist comments directed at visible female politicians significantly decreases participation intention in the tested women.

Specifically, the study found that sexist comments increase women’s expectation of social sanctions and diminish their self-reported political efficacy. Multiple sexist comments (pile-on effect) further exacerbated these effects, highlighting how online incivility functions as a form of injunctive norm signaling – communicating that women’s political contributions are unwelcome.

This research extends existing work on the silencing hypothesis by providing causal evidence of the detrimental effects of sexist backlash. The findings underscore the importance of addressing online incivility to foster a more inclusive and equitable digital public sphere.

The open-access article, “When Sexism Becomes the Norm: The Effect of Sexism on Women’s Participation in Political Online Discussions,” is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502251343988