Liking versus commenting on online news: effects of expression affordances on political attitudes

Abstract By performing actions such as “liking” a post, commenting on it, or sharing it with others, we are constantly expressing our opinions about ongoing news and public affairs online media platforms. How do these acts of expression affect feelings opinions? We address this question from an “affordance” perspective, focusing the effects both presence affordance (cue effects) users’ actual engagement (action effects). conducted experiment (N = 368) website thumbs-up/down and/or low-effort high-effort affordances, respectively. Data revealed that led to more affective polarization while promoted increased interest in deliberation. Merely presenting cue mitigated by increasing perceived interactivity. However, when users engaged providing comments, tended reinforce pre-existing opinions. These findings have theoretical practical implications.