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"Uh.....not to be nitpicky,,,,,but...the past tense of drag is dragged, not drug.": an overview of trolling strategies

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>06/2013
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Issue number1
Volume1
Number of pages30
Pages (from-to)57-86
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This paper investigates the phenomenon known as trolling — the behaviour of being deliberately antagonistic or offensive via computer-mediated communication (CMC), typically for amusement’s sake. Having previously started to answer the question, what is trolling? (Hardaker 2010), this paper seeks to answer the next question, how is trolling carried out? To do this, I use software to extract 3,727 examples of user discussions and accusations of trolling from an eighty-six million word Usenet corpus. Initial findings suggest that trolling is perceived to broadly fall across a cline with covert strategies and overt strategies at each pole. I create a working taxonomy of perceived strategies that occur at different points along this cline, and conclude by refining my trolling definition.