IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v34y2022i4p469-500.html

Hostile-emotional excess of zeal in public social media: A case study of an online firestorm against an organization

Author

Listed:
  • Katja Rost
  • Lea Stahel

Abstract

Caused by perceived norm violations, online firestorms confront organizations with large volumes of hostile-emotional comments on public social media leading to a damage to reputation or the cancellation of products and projects. Relying on social norm theory we analyze how people express perceived norm violations in their online comments and how this relates to their use of hostile-emotional online sanctions. We distinguish negative externalities; propriety judgements; excess of zeal, which combines negative externalities with propriety judgements; and no justification, meaning no speculations about why norm violations occurred, as four types of motive for hostile verbal expression. Using hostile-emotional sanctioning is differently associated with these motives: (1) weak association with negative externalities to maintain credibility; (2) moderate association with propriety judgements as a result of altruistic punishments; (3) moderate association with no justification, triggered by arousal; and (4) strong association with an excess of zeal because norm enforcers believe that a latent group exists which rewards them with positive sanctions for working toward the common goal and punishes them with negative sanctions for shirking. We analyze one specific online protest signed by 305,122 people that led to a massive hostile-emotional firestorm against an organization. We find that 37% of the 44,173 individuals who additionally commented their protest participation were hostile and/or emotional. As predicted, we find that compared to the other motives, the excess of zeal is most likely to motivate hostile-emotional sanctions. Overall, our theory and findings explain why most online firestorms are hard to stop: with an excess of zeal, a latent group of norm enforcers must be appeased.

Suggested Citation

  • Katja Rost & Lea Stahel, 2022. "Hostile-emotional excess of zeal in public social media: A case study of an online firestorm against an organization," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(4), pages 469-500, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:34:y:2022:i:4:p:469-500
    DOI: 10.1177/10434631221131258
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10434631221131258
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10434631221131258?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Posner, Richard A. & Rasmusen, Eric B., 1999. "Creating and enforcing norms, with special reference to sanctions1," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 369-382, September.
    2. Mojtaba Vaismoradi & Hannele Turunen & Terese Bondas, 2013. "Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study," Nursing & Health Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 398-405, September.
    3. Thomas Lyon & A. Montgomery, 2013. "Tweetjacked: The Impact of Social Media on Corporate Greenwash," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(4), pages 747-757, December.
    4. Posner, R.A. & Rasmusen, E., 1998. "Creating and Enforcing Norms, with Special Reference to Sanctions," Papers 98-005, Indiana - Center for Econometric Model Research.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    6. Paul H Thibodeau & Lera Boroditsky, 2011. "Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(2), pages 1-11, February.
    7. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    8. Werner Güth & Stefan Napel, 2006. "Inequality Aversion in a Variety of Games - An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 1037-1056, October.
    9. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    10. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 2005. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1291-1298, October.
    11. Andreas Diekmann, 2022. "Emergence of and compliance with new social norms: The example of the COVID crisis in Germany," Rationality and Society, , vol. 34(2), pages 129-154, May.
    12. Grimmer, Justin & Stewart, Brandon M., 2013. "Text as Data: The Promise and Pitfalls of Automatic Content Analysis Methods for Political Texts," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 267-297, July.
    13. Fischbacher, Urs & Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 2001. "Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 397-404, June.
    14. Patrick Haack & Michael D. Pfarrer & Andreas Georg Scherer, 2014. "Legitimacy-as-Feeling: How Affect Leads to Vertical Legitimacy Spillovers in Transnational Governance," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 634-666, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2021. "The influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 691-703.
    3. Dirk Helbing & Anders Johansson, 2010. "Cooperation, Norms, and Revolutions: A Unified Game-Theoretical Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-15, October.
    4. Rustam Romaniuc & Katherine Farrow & Lisette Ibanez & Alain Marciano, 2016. "The perils of government enforcement," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 161-182, January.
    5. Irlenbusch, Bernd, 2004. "Relying on a man's word?: An experimental study on non-binding contracts," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 299-332, September.
    6. Felix Kölle & Thomas Lauer, 2024. "Understanding Cooperation in an Intertemporal Context," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(11), pages 7791-7810, November.
    7. Conlin, Michael & Lynn, Michael & O'Donoghue, Ted, 2003. "The norm of restaurant tipping," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 297-321, November.
    8. Stephen V. Burks & Erin L. Krupka, 2012. "A Multimethod Approach to Identifying Norms and Normative Expectations Within a Corporate Hierarchy: Evidence from the Financial Services Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 203-217, January.
    9. Stanca, Luca, 2009. "Measuring indirect reciprocity: Whose back do we scratch?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 190-202, April.
    10. Elisabeth Gsottbauer & Jeroen den Bergh, 2013. "Bounded rationality and social interaction in negotiating a climate agreement," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 225-249, September.
    11. Craig A. Depken & Peter A. Groothuis & Mark C. Strazicich, 2020. "Evolution Of Community Deterrence: Evidence From The National Hockey League," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 289-303, April.
    12. Paton Pak Chun Yam & Gary Ting Tat Ng & Wing Tung Au & Lin Tao & Su Lu & Hildie Leung & Jane M Y Fung, 2018. "The effect of subgroup homogeneity of efficacy on contribution in public good dilemmas," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-18, July.
    13. Kenju Kamei & Smriti Sharma & Matthew J. Walker, 2023. "Sanction Enforcement among Third Parties:New Experimental Evidence from Two Societies," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2023-010, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    14. Leibbrandt, Andreas & Lynham, John, 2018. "Does the allocation of property rights matter in the commons?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 201-217.
    15. Tünde Paál & Tamás Bereczkei, 2015. "Punishment as a Means of Competition: Implications for Strong Reciprocity Theory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, March.
    16. Farrow, Katherine & Romaniuc, Rustam, 2019. "The stickiness of norms," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 54-62.
    17. Krupka, Erin & Weber, Roberto A., 2009. "The focusing and informational effects of norms on pro-social behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 307-320, June.
    18. Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Joaquim Silvestre, 2017. "The role of frames, numbers and risk in the frequency of cooperation," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(3), pages 245-267, September.
    19. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, 2001. "Moral Rules and the Moral Sentiments: Toward a Theory of an Optimal Moral System," NBER Working Papers 8688, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Ernst Fehr & Karla Hoff & Mayuresh Kshetramade, 2008. "Spite and Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 494-499, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:34:y:2022:i:4:p:469-500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.