Toxicity and Moral Rhetoric in Video- and Text-Based Digital Platforms: A Multimethod Study of Political Talk Shows and News Articles in Taiwan

To understand differences among digital platforms, examining the communication modes used on distinct platforms may be informative. This article illustrates how modes of communication on different platforms can relate to the serious risk of online toxicity. With a comparative approach, the authors examine how toxicity production relates to moral rhetoric on both political talk shows shared on YouTube and articles on news websites in Taiwan. With longitudinal survey data, they also clarify how exposure to toxic content on different platforms generates downstream consequences for social trust. The results show significant differences in toxic content across platforms. Not only do talk shows exhibit more toxic content than news articles, but this toxic content is more strongly associated with a rhetoric that prioritizes the moral foundations of loyalty and authority over other moral foundations, such as fairness. Furthermore, the associations appear stronger in talk shows than in news articles. Survey data further reveal that, compared with reading news articles, viewing talk shows increases people’s exposure to toxic content, which undermines social trust. These insights have notable implications for both media ecologies and multiplatform research.