Roses and thorns: Political talk in reality TV subreddits

Abstract

Most online media consumption is not driven by a desire to seek out news and politics. However, the public may still encounter politics because it arises organically in communities devoted to non-political subjects. This study examines the potential of popular reality television online discussion forums to serve as online third spaces and stimulate political discussion due to the natural connections that audiences make between the cast members and “real life” in reality-based programming. Based on a quantitative analysis of political comments made to reality television subreddits and a survey of visitors to a popular subreddit focused on The Bachelor television show, the findings not only demonstrate the ability of entertainment-focused online communities to expose a broad segment of the public to political talk, but also point to the obstacles in promoting political discussion that is simultaneously enjoyable, informative, and tolerant of diverse viewpoints.

Keywords

Entertainment political discussion political engagement social media toxicity

Most media consumption is not related to news. Even in the middle of the US presidential election, where a winner was not declared by media until 7 November 2020, the NFL game on Thursday, 5 November, drew higher ratings than cable or network primetime broadcasts, and the airing of The Bachelorette drew comparable viewership to primetime election coverage on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News (Nielsen, 2020a, 2020b). That viewers opt to consume entertainment instead of news may speak poorly of the public’s interest and ability to become informed and engaged democratic citizens. This preference can create deleterious effects on political engagement, generating gaps between the hyper-engaged, participatory public, and the rest of adults who would prefer to stay out of politics (Prior, 2007). In this study, however, we build on research that shows that the separation of news and entertainment consumption is not always clear (Delli Carpini, 2014). Politics frequently enters spaces that people seek out for entertainment due to the sociopolitical conversations that entertainment programs generate (Holbert, 2005). Social media provide a venue for these conversations. Entertainment programs regularly spark attention on social media as the audience follows a second screen to participate in additional commentary about an event (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2015). For example, broadcasts of The Bachelor programs often generate more than a million social interactions (Nielsen, 2019).

Our study shows how these social interactions may often include organic political discussions even in communities ostensibly devoted to a non-political subject like reality TV. Furthermore, we examine the extent to which these online entertainment-based social communities are well-suited to activate political engagement especially among those otherwise inclined to opt out of politics—and cultivate political discussions in a manner that avoids the pitfalls of more traditional platforms for political talk, which can be toxic, polarized, and dominated by those who are already hyper-interested in politics (Druckman et al., 2021; Settle, 2018).

We measure political discussion in reality TV communities on Reddit during 2020. Reddit is a social media platform designed as a public discussion forum with “subreddit” communities based on a wide range of topics. Consistent with recent work on political talk in non-political spaces (Rajadesingan et al., 2021), we find a regular presence of comments in reality TV subreddits that mention political keywords. We then analyze the political content on the r/thebachelor subreddit, a community with a high degree of political talk, to assess the types of users who engage in political discussions and dynamics of discussion, including the toxicity of posts and how posts are rewarded or sanctioned. We supplement this with a survey of 1264 of r/thebachelor visitors to further examine what types of people are likely to participate in political discussion and perceptions of these discussions.

The results first support the findings of Bode’s (2017) work on social networking sites: to a certain extent, subreddit communities serve as both additional outlets for engagement among the most politically interested and catalysts for engagement for those otherwise less inclined toward politics. Our results, however, also underscore the limitations of non-political spaces that turn political. As quasi-anonymous platforms, they are still vulnerable to toxicity that may serve only to further alienate some visitors from discussion, particularly visitors who tend to be conflict averse or hold views that do not align with the dominant political orientations. And while survey respondents pointed to political discussions on the r/thebachelor community as enjoyable, a majority indicated traditional news consumption was still more informative. Instead of acting as a substitute for traditional pathways to political engagement, these entertainment spaces complement existing pathways for increased political engagement by fostering spontaneous, even if imperfect, opportunities for participation in the digital world.

Online third spaces

In recent decades, scholars have shown concern about the potential for the increasingly high-choice media environment to drive the public away from politics. As Prior (2007) finds, the shift from broadcast to cable news allowed people who prefer entertainment to news, the choice to opt out of news consumption. For people who are already politically inclined, the onset of the Internet and social media facilitate even more, often low-cost pathways for political engagement (Delli Carpini, 2000), but for people who are not interested in political content, more opportunity does not increase motivation to seek out politics. The potential of a large portion of the public to opt out of political media spaces can have deleterious effects, including decreasing the political participation (e.g. voter turnout) of those who opt out and increasing the polarization of the electorate (Prior, 2007). In addition, when people do enter political spaces, they can be dominated by “fervent partisans” (Druckman et al., 2021: 5), which distorts and amplifies misperceptions about the extremity of opposing political sides (Druckman et al., 2021; Settle, 2018).

However, a growing body of research questions the utility of drawing a “news versus entertainment” distinction in media consumption (Baum, 2002; Delli Carpini, 2014; Holbert, 2005). The public’s power to curate their own digital media diet is not absolute, in part, due to the possibility for “by-product” or “incidental” news exposure online (Kim et al., 2013; Tewksbury et al., 2001). Even if people try to avoid seeing news and political content, they may nonetheless stumble upon this content unexpectedly on social media or elsewhere online. Social media has been shown to help activate people who are otherwise less interested in politics by encouraging them to engage in “easy” political behaviors, such as “liking” political posts (Bode, 2017). Based on a 2012 survey of behavior on social networking sites, Bode (2017) finds, “even a substantial portion of those who never post about politics themselves are engaging with political content generated by others” (p. 6). While there has been much discussion around the effects of “easy” political behaviors on social media (Kim et al., 2021; Ohme, 2019; Vraga, 2019), we extend previous work to assess and clarify who is engaging in this type of political activity and perceptions of these political conversations.

This study focuses on the potential for a particular type of online forum—online third spaces—to serve an activation role in a way that may reduce some of the pitfalls of interactions in explicitly political spaces. Developed by Oldenburg (1999), third places are spaces outside of the home and office where people can gather and engage in everyday social interaction. More recently, scholars have applied the concept of the “third place” as a physical space to online virtual “third spaces,” where people may gather to interact out of a shared interest or hobby (Graham, 2010, 2012; Graham et al., 2016; Wright, 2012; Yan et al., 2018). These spaces are seemingly non-political in their inherent reason for existence, but political talk may still surface in these spaces organically. Many social media platforms may serve as online third spaces, given the flexibility that users have to talk about a wide range of topics. The unexpected political information that naturally emerges through discussions in seemingly non-political spaces may help to offset disengagement effects found in previous work for those who opt for entertainment as their primary form of consumption (Prior, 2007), and create political encounters less dominated by people perceived as stereotypically more extreme.

We focus on Reddit, specifically, as a potential online third space where political discussion may arise organically due to the platform’s affordances that encourage unlimited exchanges between users in response to user posts instead of more constrained “reactions,” as well as the platform’s wide variety of well-defined, interest-specific communities, including a large number of ostensibly non-political communities (Rajadesingan et al., 2021). Reddit is a popular platform that 18% of US adults report using, but less than half use the platform as their regular news source (Auxier and Anderson, 2021; Shearer and Mitchell, 2021). News and politics come up organically. Rajadesingan et al. (2021) find that more than 40% of political content on Reddit occurs in typically non-political subreddits.

Within the class of non-political spaces, our study focuses on the potential for reality television discussion communities, specifically, to act as effective online third spaces due to the natural connection between the “characters” presented on television and “real life” in reality shows. When people gather out of shared interest in a reality television show, they are speculating on real people—who have attitudes and are situated in a world with real events that spur discussion. Furthermore, the purposefully relatable construction of reality TV may encourage the formation of parasocial relationships, where viewers feel a connection with the cast and are, therefore, more invested in aspects of a cast member’s personal life, including their views on social and political issues. Exposure to reality shows can have a significant influence on viewers’ values and political beliefs (Holbert, 2005). We argue that discussion of reality shows may serve only to enhance the impact of this form of entertainment by stimulating interactive political activities. Graham et al. (2016) and Graham (2010) found that more than 20% of reality TV online discussion threads in UK forums for Wife Swap and Big Brother UK involved political talk.

Unlike other discussion spaces that people intentionally seek out for political conversation, these communities have unique potential to draw in both people looking for additional pathways to express their political interests and people who are seeking entertainment but still stumble upon political conversation. Our expectations for reality TV subreddit communities follow Bode (2017) to include Interest and Activation hypotheses.

Interest. Those who are generally more interested and engaged in politics will be more likely to participate in political discussion on reality TV subreddits. These subreddits are providing yet another pathway for expressing their interests and opinions.

Activation. These reality TV subreddits will also serve as a catalyst for political engagement for those who are otherwise less interested in politics, drawing people into following political discussions on the subreddit even if they prefer to avoid politics.

Sense of community

A subreddit may be particularly well-suited for drawing people into political conversation, given that the visitors are already connected through shared interest and may have a built-in affinity for community members. When people enter an online third space, they are already starting with a shared interest in whatever show, hobby, or other subject area of the forum. People who are highly invested in the community of the online space may be willing to trust that relationship to extend outside of the immediate subject area. Those who are otherwise averse to politics might be more willing to discuss politics with those they deem similar due to their shared participation in the community. Moreover, they might even assume their fellow community members hold similar beliefs and values as themselves (Huckfeldt and Sprague, 1995). Yet, an online third space, not unlike the workspace, also represents a gathering of individuals that are outside of one’s household or immediate friend group. It is often in these spaces where there is the greatest potential for people to interact with those who do not share their views (Wojcieszak and Mutz, 2009), which might lead to interideological deliberative discussion (Freelon, 2010).

The United States, in particular, is deeply affectively polarized by partisanship due, in part, to the stereotypes that individuals hold about partisans on the other side (Ahler and Sood, 2018; Druckman et al., 2021). By engaging with others through a subreddit community, users may come to see each other as individuals first—or part of a different type of social “ingroup” defined by their shared community. Even if political discussion arises, participants who are invested in the community may be less likely to view their fellow community members through the stereotypical lens typically attributed to partisan outgroups. Prolonged interaction with outgroup members can wear down stereotypes and create positive affective ties between social groups (Allport, 1954). As Wojcieszak and Mutz (2009) suggest, “Once people have established common ground perhaps as gardeners, or as weekend house fixer-uppers, political differences may be less threatening and more easily deflected than in an online discussion group designed explicitly for political exchanges” (pp. 51–52). We hypothesize:

Sense of community. Individuals who are strongly invested and feel a sense of community on the platform ought to be more likely to participate and perceive political discussions more positively.

Conditions for negative discussion behaviors

The subreddit space is also vulnerable to negative discussion behaviors. As Conover and Miller (2018) note, online political discussions are often distinct from everyday face-to-face conversations in their anonymous nature. Subreddits are quasi-anonymous where each user creates a username. Previous studies of online discussion have found that anonymity is more likely to lead to “flaming” and other forms of uncivil discussion (Massanari, 2017; Santana, 2014). Once toxicity and incivility—broadly defined as rude and disrespectful remarks—have made their way into an online forum, it is hard to ignore, given that hostile interactions are more visible online than in private offline settings (Bor and Petersen, 2021).

Incivility can have two consequences that discourage productive political dialogue. When people detect toxicity, some may be discouraged and retreat from engagement (Kilgo et al., 2018; Theocharis et al., 2016), especially among those with high levels of conflict aversion who tend to avoid contexts where they might encounter contentious interactions (Mutz, 2002). Second, for others, the presence of incivility and toxic behavior can make it more likely they will also engage in negative discussion behaviors, particularly when these behaviors are positively reinforced by others (Cheng et al., 2017; Rajadesingan et al., 2020).

In addition, there is mixed evidence on the ability of Reddit to foster heterogeneous discussion networks that can help reduce stereotypes people have about partisans on opposing sides (Druckman et al., 2021). On one hand, De Francisci Morales et al. (2021) show that supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were more likely to interact with those across the political spectrum than those on the same side in a general political discussion subreddit. Rajadesingan et al. (2021) also find that political interactions in typically non-political subreddits tend to be less toxic than that of political subreddits. On the other hand, within particular subreddits, the pattern of interaction and discussion norms may look different. A non-political subreddit could still be dominated by people of particular political leanings due to the correlation between different social identities and politics (Mason, 2018).

Intolerance is particularly likely to occur in homogeneous settings where discussions could serve to reinforce the dominant group’s beliefs and potentially suggest that opposing beliefs and identities are unwelcome (Klar, 2014; Levendusky et al., 2016). For example, Gaudette et al. (2020) find that discussions on r/The Donald elevated extreme right-wing views by rewarding users who expressed hostile views toward out-groups. Massanari (2017) and Kilgo et al. (2018) find that Reddit’s structural designs and subsequent value of “geek culture” have allowed for the spread of hegemonic masculinity, marginalizing women from active participation on the website. In more homogeneous settings where toxicity is present, those who have minority opinions or belong to the “outgroup” may refrain from sharing their beliefs to avoid social isolation or conflict. As a result, the majority opinion is reinforced and grows stronger (Klar, 2014), while the dissenting beliefs “spiral” into insignificance (Gearhart and Zhang, 2015; Noelle-Neumann, 1991).¹ Considering research on conditions that generate toxicity and incivility and their consequences, we hypothesize:

Conflict aversion. The presence of incivility and toxicity may discourage conflict-avoidant visitors from participating.

Visitor homogeneity. Forums dominated by visitors of particular viewpoints will lead to intolerance and discouragement of other viewpoints.

Case selection and research design

Our study tests these hypotheses through an analysis of political discussion on r/thebachelor, a subreddit focused on The Bachelor franchise. We focus on this forum given its popularity on Reddit and the observed levels of political talk in the forum. In the 2020 Reddit year in review, r/thebachelor was one of the five most active reality TV subreddits in terms of the number of posts and comments made to the community. The subreddit content reflects the nature of a third space: while inspired by the show, the content goes beyond discussion of the episodes and into other topics, including politics. The r/thebachelor subreddit rules allow political discussion when users include a “politics” flair—one of several content tags created by moderators for users to indicate the subject area of a post (Online Appendix Figure A1). From a research perspective, the “politics” flair provides a mechanism to distinguish between political and non-political conversations in a way that aligns with how subreddit visitors may see the demarcation.

While other non-political reality TV subreddits have some political discussion, we focus our analysis on r/thebachelor also because it has particularly high levels of political talk. We conducted a dictionary-based analysis to quantify political talk in the five most active (greatest number of comments and posts) reality TV subreddits according to the Reddit 2020 year in review: r/thebachelor, r/bigbrother, r/90DayFiance, r/survivor, and r/RuPaulsDragRace. Figure 1 displays the number of comments in these spaces, by week during 2020–2021, which contained at least one of a small set of overtly political words, using the PushShift archive of Reddit comments (Baumgartner et al., 2020).² Consistent with the findings of Rajadesingan et al. (2021), Figure 1 reveals a lively presence of political talk in each of these seemingly non-political Reddit spaces (see Online Appendix pp. 2–3 for examples of political comments made in these spaces). The r/thebachelor subreddit tends to have the greatest number of political comments by this measure, making it a valuable case for an in-depth analysis of what types of users participate in political discussions and the dynamics of these discussions.

Figure 1.

Comments with political key words.

The analysis includes two primary approaches: an analysis of posts made to r/thebachelor and a survey of r/thebachelor visitors. These approaches provide both an objective assessment of political subreddit activity, and subjective perceptions of the political discussions and characteristics of subreddit visitors, including conflict aversion and political orientations.

Reddit posts

Sample 1

We first use an application programming interface (API) to extract two samples of posts on r/thebachelor and information about the users commenting on r/thebachelor. The first sample is designed to understand which types of Reddit users are most likely to participate in political discussion on the r/thebachelor subreddit, providing an initial test of the Interest and Activation hypotheses. For this analysis, using the Reddit API, we extracted 1000 submissions made to r/thebachelor from 9 to 19 November 2020 and information about these submissions, including their subject, as indicated by a “flair” tagged alongside the post. For each of these submissions, we also extracted about 60,000 comments made on these posts and the comment’s author. From these data, we construct our primary dependent variable for this analysis: whether or not a commenter (among those who have made comments anywhere on r/thebachelor) made a comment on a r/thebachelor political flaired submission. The sample included 18 posts flaired for politics and more than 1000 comments on these political posts. As detailed in the “Results: Reddit post analysis” section, we evaluate factors related to participation in political discussions of r/thebachelor using regressions. All analyses were conducted by the authors using R.

To construct the independent variables, we gathered information about the comment authors. For each comment author, we extracted up to 200 of the author’s most recent comments made since 2016 across all of Reddit. For these posts, we identify whether the comment was made to a Bachelor-related subreddit, political subreddit, general news-related subreddit, or COVID-19 related subreddit (Online Appendix Tables A2 and A3). From this, we can calculate the proportion of recent posts made by r/thebachelor commenters in each of these categories. This allows for a test of which types of users are more likely to participate in the political discussions on the subreddit—users that, through their behavior across Reddit, appear generally interested in politics (indicative of the Interest Hypothesis) or users who are interested in The Bachelor or other reality TV entertainment. If the political posts on the r/thebachelor are unrelated to existing political activity across Reddit and instead related to interest in discussing reality TV entertainment, this would be more indicative of “activation”—drawing in users who otherwise do not appear particularly inclined toward politics. Because interest in news is generally correlated with political interest (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996), we include activity related to news and COVID-19 (a salient news topic at the time) as control covariates to better isolate the relationship between political interest, specifically, and political posting on r/thebachelor.

Sample 2

A second data collection of Reddit posts focuses on the activity within the political posts on r/thebachelor. For this analysis, we extracted 231 posts tagged with the “politics” flair from 31 May 2020 to 18 November 2020, including the title, body, author, and date the post was created. For each of these posts, we also extracted comments made on the post. We measure each comment’s toxicity using Google’s Perspective API. Perspective uses machine learning methods to quantify the probability that a piece of text is toxic, defined as “a rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable comment that is likely to make you leave a discussion.” Researchers have shown that the Perspective API performs well in detecting toxicity in Reddit comments (Rajadesingan et al., 2020). In the results, we quantify the level of toxicity in political discussions in the subreddit to understand the relevance of the Conflict Aversion hypothesis. That is, if there is little toxicity in the political discussions, we might be less inclined to expect that conflict-averse individuals would avoid these discussions. We also extract the comment author and the comment’s “score.” The score reflects the net upvotes versus downvotes a comment receives from other users who read the comment. This will serve as a dependent variable in regression analyses. We assess if more toxic comments are rewarded through higher scores. If toxicity is both present and rewarded on a platform, this would make the Conflict Aversion Hypothesis particularly relevant.

Finally, for each of the comment authors, similar to the previous sample, we extracted their most recent comments made on any subreddit since 2016 and classify whether they tend to visit political, Bachelor, or other reality TV subreddits. We further assess the number of times users posted on Democratic/liberal- or Republican/conservative-leaning political subreddits (Online Appendix Table A2). These measures serve as independent variables in the regression analyses. We can observe if posts from users with a particular political leaning in their Reddit behavior are more likely to be rewarded or sanctioned relative to other users in the comment scores, providing initial tests of the Visitor Homogeneity hypothesis.

Survey

As a second methodological approach, we conducted an original survey of r/thebachelor subreddit visitors. The survey was in the field December 20, 2020—January 1, 2021. To recruit subjects, the authors gained permission from the subreddit moderators to make a post on the subreddit asking r/thebachelor visitors to take a 10-minute survey about perceptions of political discussions in online spaces. The recruitment post included a link to a survey on Qualtrics and consent form. The analysis of survey responses includes descriptive statistics and multiple regression analyses to evaluate the characteristics associated with participation in r/thebachelor political discussions and perceptions of these discussions. The language of the recruitment post, consent form, full survey questions, and sample inclusion criteria are in the Online Appendix.

The survey complements the Reddit post analysis. Here, we can more directly test the Sense of Community, Conflict Aversion and Visitor Homogeneity hypotheses to evaluate if those who value the community of r/thebachelor have more positive experiences with political discussion, while those who are conflict averse, and those who do not share the majority’s political orientation, retreat from or come away with more negative experiences with the political discussions. While the analysis of Reddit posts provides a way to estimate a user’s pre-existing political interest and political leanings and characterize actual behavior on the forum, the survey provides a direct way to learn about the underlying psychology of participation: how the users self-identify their political interest and orientations, their reasons for participating in and perceptions of political discussions on r/thebachelor, and level of conflict aversion.

The sample includes 1264 respondents. The vast majority of respondents are female (96%), young (nearly 70% are under 35), White (82%), well-educated (85% report a 4-year college degree), American (90%), and lean Democratic politically (88%). The r/thebachelor subreddit conducted its own “census” to measure the demographics of visitors. Similar to our sample, they find that subreddit users are 95% women, 84.1% White, with the average age being 28 years old, and 75.9% Democrat. In contrast, a 2016 Pew Research report found that only 33% of Reddit users are women, with 70% being White and 64% between the ages of 18 and 29 years (Barthel et al., 2016).

Results: Reddit post analysis

The first analysis evaluates factors that influence the likelihood that a r/thebachelor user participates in political discussion in the subreddit. The sample consists of users that made a comment on a recent post somewhere on the r/thebachelor forum (but not necessarily in a political thread). Table 1 displays the results of logistic regression analyses. The dependent variable is dichotomous, where 1 = the user posted comments on a submission with a particular flair and 0 = otherwise. The first column focuses on whether users made a comment to politics-flaired posts on r/thebachelor. The last three columns focus on posts made to non-political flairs, including flairs specifically about The Bachelorette seasons that were airing at the time of the data collection (Tayshia and Clare) or a flair related to spoilers on those seasons. The independent variables characterize each user’s political behavior across Reddit.

Table 1.

Logistic regression: posting on bachelor subreddit flairs.

	Politics	Tayshia	Clare	Season spoilers
Intercept	−5.76*** (0.27)	−3.21*** (0.12)	−4.53*** (0.18)	−4.07*** (0.14)
Proportion political subreddits	2.97*** (0.58)	0.30 (0.50)	−0.91 (0.84)	0.95 (0.59)
Proportion news subreddits	6.06** (2.27)	0.80 (2.01)	2.85 (2.23)	−14.54* (5.89)
Proportion COVID subreddits	3.94** (1.33)	0.24 (1.21)	1.89 (1.32)	−1.02 (1.86)
Proportion reality TV subreddits	0.33 (0.44)	0.12 (0.21)	0.54* (0.26)	0.69** (0.24)
Proportion bachelor-related subreddits	2.41*** (0.19)	1.45*** (0.10)	1.81*** (0.13)	2.61*** (0.12)
Number of posts	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)	0.01*** (0.00)
AIC	2508.01	6269.03	4326.81	5201.11
BIC	2555.97	6316.98	4374.76	5249.07
Log likelihood	−1247.01	−3127.51	−2156.40	−2593.56
Deviance	2494.01	6255.03	4312.81	5187.11
Num. obs.	6981	6981	6981	6981

Reddit Post Data Sample 1. COVID: coronavirus disease; AIC: Akaike information criterion; BIC: Bayesian information criterion.

***

p < .001; **p < .01; p < 0.05.

The results indicate that those who tend to primarily post on political subreddits, indicating a more general interest in politics through their behavior across Reddit, are significantly more likely to post in the politics-flaired threads on the r/thebachelor subreddit, controlling for posting in other types of spaces and their overall number of posts.³ Online Appendix Figure A2 displays the predicted probability of posting to r/thebachelor politics flaired posts across levels of political behavior on Reddit. In contrast, those who engage more heavily in other reality TV subreddits are not more likely to post to political threads on r/thebachelor. These findings are consistent with the Interest hypothesis but not the Activation hypothesis. Political discussions on r/thebachelor may reinforce the types of inequalities in political activity observed in other spaces, where it is primarily those with pre-existing interest in politics using the forum to engage in yet another form of political participation. Focusing on columns 2–4, political interest does not predict the likelihood that a user posts on the Tayshia, Clare, or Season Spoiler flairs. Political interest is uniquely associated with posting in r/thebachelor political discussions.

We also find that those who devote more of their time specifically to Bachelor-related subreddits are also significantly more likely to post on r/thebachelor political threads, specifically. This provides initial evidence that those who are more invested in the r/thebachelor community are also more likely to comment on political topics in addition to other topics.

The next analyses assess toxicity in the subreddit and how comments are rewarded or sanctioned. The toxicity analyses diagnose the relevance of the Conflict Aversion hypothesis: if there are no toxic remarks found in the subreddit, concerns about visitors disengaging to avoid conflict are more trivial. In addition, the survey sample composition suggests that subreddit visitors are largely Democratic and, thus, homogeneous in one form of identity. The analysis of comment scores will help examine if within this relatively homogeneous community, those aligned with the majority are more likely to be rewarded in their comment scores.

We begin by analyzing the sample of comments on 231 submissions made on r/thebachelor politics flairs, and the associated comments made on the posts. The sample includes 6078 unique users that made comments within the sample of 58,310 comments.⁴ We classify a comment as toxic if it had a probability greater than .5 of being perceived as toxic according to the Perspective API, following Rajadesingan et al. (2020). Overall, about 13.7% of comments in the politics flair were classified as toxic. Political posts that were related to race had an especially high share of toxic comments, with nearly 1 in 5 posts being classified as toxic (Figure A5),⁵ which may drive some visitors away from racialized political discussions in particular.⁶ Comments made to posts flaired as politics on r/thebachelor are also significantly more toxic than posts to other popular flairs in the subreddit (Figure A5). Political discussions have higher toxicity than visitors are used to in other spaces in their community.

We next assess how comments are rewarded or sanctioned in the subreddit. Table 2, column 1, displays a user-level linear regression of a user’s average comment score on user characteristics, including their tendency to post on subreddits of a particular type across Reddit, level of posting activity, and average toxicity of their posts. Columns 2 and 3 are comment-level regressions, which regress an individual comment score on user and post characteristics, with random intercepts for comment authors and submissions. In these regressions, we also control for the type of submissions to which users were commenting, the length of comments, and the timing of comments. These serve as controls, accounting for the possibility that these attributes may also influence comment scores and could correlate with comment toxicity.

Table 2.

Association between user and post information and comment score.

	User level	Comment level	Comment level
Intercept	10.29*** (2.13)	2.82 (2.39)	1.36 (2.38)
No. of user posts to conservative subreddits	−0.42* (0.20)	−0.32** (0.11)	−0.32** (0.11)
No. of user posts to liberal subreddits	−0.09 (0.22)	−0.10 (0.14)	−0.10 (0.14)
Proportion of user posts to political subreddits	1.52 (6.23)	6.88 (4.23)	6.82 (4.23)
Number of recent user posts on Reddit	0.05* (0.02)	0.03* (0.02)	0.03* (0.02)
Number of user comments on political posts on r/thebachelor	−0.05** (0.02)	0.00 (0.01)	0.00 (0.01)
Proportion of user posts to bachelor subreddits	7.83*** (1.67)	12.16*** (1.20)	12.19*** (1.20)
Proportion of user posts to news subreddits	−11.49 (23.86)	−19.74 (17.00)	−20.06 (16.98)
Proportion of user posts to COVID subreddits	−5.86 (13.07)	−0.40 (9.46)	−0.40 (9.45)
Proportion of user posts to reality TV subreddits	1.88 (3.08)	3.89^† (2.33)	3.84^† (2.33)
Average user toxicity score on r/thebachelor political posts	14.65*** (2.93)
Toxic post (dichotomous)		4.20*** (0.48)
Length of comment (words)		0.04*** (0.00)	0.03*** (0.00)
Comment in discussion thread		−7.62*** (1.51)	−7.52*** (1.50)
Comment in post about election		2.96* (1.37)	3.06* (1.36)
Comment in post about race		0.48 (1.53)	0.40 (1.52)
Comment in post about cast		5.43*** (1.45)	5.34*** (1.44)
Days until election		0.06*** (0.01)	0.06*** (0.01)
Likelihood comment is toxic			10.22*** (0.73)
Adj. R²	.01
Num. of obs.	6078	57,865	57,865
Log likelihood		−295,107.25	−295,047.62
Num. of groups: author		6078	6078
Num. of groups: submission		231	231

Reddit Post Data Sample 2. The dependent variable in column 1 is a user’s average comment score. The dependent variable in Columns 2–3 is a particular comment’s score. COVID: coronavirus disease.

***

p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; ^†p < .1.

The results reveal two primary findings. First, posting from users with more Republican/ conservative Reddit behavior is significantly negatively related to comment scores on r/thebachelor politics flairs. More conservative users, as proxied by their posting behavior, receive lower comment scores on average. (See Online Appendix p. 11 for comment examples by score and toxicity.) This result is consistent with responses in the survey. A respondent noted, “The reason I hate political discussions on . . . the bachelor subreddit is that even though my views align with the majority, there is no room for opposing views . . . and conservative/Republican opinions get downvoted to hell.”⁷ Second, comments that are more toxic also received significantly higher scores, on average, suggesting they are rewarded by other users. With toxicity being reinforced in the forum, this creates the conditions where conflict averse visitors may be discouraged from participation, which we assess further in the survey analysis.

Survey results

We next test the hypotheses using survey data, first assessing overall satisfaction with and participation in subreddit political discussions. More than 60% of respondents indicate they are happy r/thebachelor provides a space for political discussions,⁸ but preferences vary significantly across user characteristics (Figure A6). Table 3 displays the results of logistic regression analyses where the dependent variable in Column 1 is 1 = Happy politics is on the subreddit and 0 = Otherwise. Columns 2 and 3 build on this analysis to evaluate whether a respondent has commented on or created a political post on r/thebachelor (Column 2) and whether a respondent indicates that a reason they visit r/thebachelor is to see what fans of the show are saying about social and political issues (Column 3). The regression models account for subreddit visitor characteristics of partisanship, general political interest and online political activity, conflict aversion, and self-reported reasons for participating in the subreddit. We also control for respondent age, education, whether the respondent is American, and race/ethnicity, as these demographics tend to correlate with political engagement (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996).

Table 3.

Participation in and perceptions of r/thebachelor political discussions.

	Logistic regressions			OLS regressions
	Happy politics on subreddit	Created/commented on political post	Visit r/thebachelor for political reasons	Civil	Enjoyable	Informative	Polite	Toxic
Intercept	−3.76*** (0.55)	−3.89*** (0.53)	−3.56*** (0.54)	0.40*** (0.04)	0.22*** (0.05)	0.24*** (0.05)	0.37*** (0.04)	0.67*** (0.04)
Conflict aversion	−0.92** (0.35)	−1.03** (0.34)	−0.72* (0.33)	−0.02 (0.03)	−0.07* (0.03)	0.02 (0.03)	−0.03 (0.03)	0.01 (0.03)
Black	0.18 (0.41)	0.49 (0.36)	0.12 (0.36)	−0.04 (0.03)	−0.02 (0.04)	0.06^† (0.04)	−0.05 (0.03)	−0.01 (0.03)
Hispanic	−0.10 (0.27)	0.03 (0.27)	−0.04 (0.26)	0.08*** (0.02)	0.04^† (0.03)	0.02 (0.02)	0.07** (0.02)	−0.07** (0.02)
Asian	0.57* (0.25)	−0.19 (0.23)	0.15 (0.21)	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.01 (0.02)	−0.01 (0.02)	0.01 (0.02)	0.02 (0.02)
Other race	0.30 (0.57)	0.19 (0.52)	0.22 (0.53)	−0.01 (0.04)	−0.05 (0.05)	−0.06 (0.05)	−0.07 (0.04)	0.05 (0.04)
Education	0.04 (0.22)	−0.04 (0.21)	−0.06 (0.21)	0.02 (0.02)	0.00 (0.02)	−0.02 (0.02)	0.02 (0.02)	−0.03 (0.02)
Age	0.44^† (0.25)	0.69** (0.24)	−0.03 (0.23)	−0.01 (0.02)	−0.01 (0.02)	0.01 (0.02)	0.01 (0.02)	0.00 (0.02)
American	−0.36 (0.24)	0.09 (0.23)	−0.24 (0.22)	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.03 (0.02)	0.00 (0.02)	0.00 (0.02)
General online political activity	1.74*** (0.26)	1.57*** (0.26)	0.78** (0.24)	0.04^† (0.02)	0.11*** (0.02)	0.05^† (0.02)	0.04^† (0.02)	−0.05* (0.02)
Follows politics most of the time	0.46** (0.15)	0.11 (0.15)	0.19 (0.14)	0.02 (0.01)	0.05*** (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	−0.00 (0.01)
Gets news through social media	0.55*** (0.16)	0.17 (0.16)	0.65*** (0.16)	0.04** (0.01)	0.04** (0.02)	0.06*** (0.02)	0.03* (0.01)	−0.03* (0.01)
Active r/thebachelor visitor	1.31*** (0.32)	2.00*** (0.35)	0.84** (0.30)	0.04 (0.03)	0.06* (0.03)	0.09** (0.03)	0.01 (0.03)	0.04 (0.03)
Active viewer of bachelor shows	−0.20 (0.16)	−0.01 (0.15)	0.01 (0.15)	−0.01 (0.01)	0.01 (0.01)	0.02 (0.01)	0.00 (0.01)	−0.00 (0.01)
Goes on r/thebachelor as an escape	−0.24 (0.19)	0.10 (0.19)	−0.09 (0.17)	−0.04* (0.02)	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.03 (0.02)	−0.04** (0.02)	0.03* (0.02)
Goes on r/thebachelor for community	0.74*** (0.15)	0.65*** (0.14)	1.01*** (0.13)	0.05*** (0.01)	0.09*** (0.01)	0.07*** (0.01)	0.05*** (0.01)	−0.03** (0.01)
Identifies/leans Democrat	2.52*** (0.31)	0.22 (0.26)	1.75*** (0.33)	0.20*** (0.02)	0.21*** (0.02)	0.13*** (0.02)	0.19*** (0.02)	−0.24*** (0.02)
Log likelihood	−647.43	−688.80	−726.29
Deviance	1294.87	1377.61	1452.59
Num. obs.	1263	1263	1263	1128	1129	1130	1127	1129
R ²				.16	.23	.14	.16	.18
Adj. R²				.15	.22	.13	.14	.17

Survey Data. Columns 1–3 are logistic regressions among the full sample, and columns 4–8 are linear regressions conducted on visitors who report viewing political discussions on the subreddit. OLS = ordinary least squares.

***

p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; ^†p < .1.

Consistent with the Interest Hypothesis, the results (Table 3, columns 1–3) show that general online political engagement is significantly related to a respondent being happy that the subreddit provides a space for political discussions, participating in these discussions, and seeking out r/thebachelor, in part, to see what fans of the show are saying about political issues. In addition, those who state they visit r/thebachelor, in part, for a sense of community, are more likely to be happy that the subreddit includes political discussions and participate in and seek out these discussions. Conflict aversion is negatively associated with participation in and satisfaction with political discussions across outcomes, consistent with our hypotheses. Finally, we find that those who align with the majority’s (Democratic) partisanship are significantly more likely to be happy that there is a space for politics. Less than 10% of respondents who are not aligned with the Democratic Party report being happy that there is a space for discussion of political topics.

The results turn to evaluate subjective perceptions of how informative, enjoyable, polite, civil, or toxic the political discussions tend to be.⁹ Linear regression results are presented in Table 3 columns 4–8, where the dependent variable is the perception of how often discussions embody a particular attribute, each measured on a 5-point scale from “never” to “always or almost always.” Consistent with the Sense of Community hypothesis, those who purposely seek out the subreddit for a sense of community are more likely to view political discussions on r/thebachelor in a positive light. In addition, building on the previous analysis, the subreddit is primarily composed of Democratic-leaning visitors, and consistent with the Visitor Homogeneity hypothesis, those not aligned with this majority orientation find the political discussions to be, on average, significantly less civil, informative, enjoyable, and polite, and significantly more toxic.

The survey further asked respondents to compare how civil, enjoyable, and informative discussions are on the subreddit relative to political discussion and political news they consume in other places (Figure 2). Overall, respondents view political discussions they have with close friends as having a more optimal combination of characteristics: more civil, informative, and enjoyable. The subreddit does better in comparison to other settings. While respondents overwhelmingly find news consumption to be more informative, many also find it less civil or enjoyable than conversations on r/thebachelor. Likewise, a majority find that conversations elsewhere on social media are less civil than r/thebachelor. The survey results underscore the promise and limitations of political discussion in an entertainment-based community. Many visitors find the community to be a civil and enjoyable outlet for discussion. However, it is neither on par with the level of enjoyment people get from conversations with close friends nor as informative as content people consume from the news.

Figure 2.

Comparing r/thebachelor with other political discussion.

Interest versus activation

The final set of survey analyses focuses directly on understanding whether the subreddit provides any form of “activation” effects in addition to what the previous results have suggested, which is that the forum provides an additional outlet for participation for those who are already politically active. Here, similar to Bode’s (2017) test of activation on social networking sites, we compare subreddit participation in political discussions among the full sample of respondents to respondents with particularly low political engagement: respondents who indicate they do not follow news and public affairs most of the time, who are below the median in the sample in terms of online political engagement, and at least somewhat dislike discussing politics. Although low political engagement respondents are unlikely to create or comment on political posts, a substantial majority of these respondents have at least viewed these posts (Figure 3, top). We also ask respondents whether their participation on r/thebachelor has led to other political activity (Figure 3, bottom). A majority of respondents indicate they have clicked on information to learn more about an issue due to something they have seen on r/thebachelor, including more than one-third of low-engagement respondents. This indicates at least some activation.

Figure 3.

Activating low engagement visitors.

Discussion and conclusion

This study examined the extent to which reality TV communities can spark organic political discussion in ways that overcome obstacles of traditional political spaces that can be toxic and dominated by the hyper-politically engaged (Druckman et al., 2021; Settle, 2018). Focusing on r/thebachelor, similar to Bode (2017) and consistent with the Interest Hypothesis, the results show that those who are generally more politically inclined are more likely to engage in and express satisfaction with subreddit political discussion. That said, there is some alignment with the Activation Hypothesis where those who are typically less interested in politics nonetheless report exposure to and learning from r/thebachelor political content. In addition, those who value a sense of community from the subreddit viewed political discussions more positively. These results provide some evidence that organic political content in these online third spaces can capture the attention of people who might otherwise feel alienated from politics, and the built-in community affinity may translate into more enjoyable political conversations.

We anticipate these effects to apply outside of “Bachelor Nation.” On Reddit, political discussion is not unique to r/thebachelor, as shown in Figure 1, where multiple reality TV subreddits see weeks with hundreds of political comments. For example, during the 2020 US election, r/RuPaulsDragRace had an “election megathread” that provided updates and results of the Electoral College. This type of post provides both an additional political venue for those politically interested and a resource for community members otherwise less politically inclined.

However, the study’s findings also suggest that r/thebachelor confronts obstacles indicative of more traditional political spaces. The subreddit’s political discussions have higher levels of toxicity than many non-political discussions in the forum, consistent with recent research on political talk in non-political Reddit spaces (Rajadesingan et al., 2021). The survey results point to a potential consequence of contentious political discussions: visitors with higher conflict aversion are less likely to participate. The subreddit is also dominated by Democratic-leaning visitors. While relatively homogeneous communities can be conducive to certain normatively positive democratic outcomes (Freelon, 2010), they can also drive out non-majority viewpoints (Gearhart and Zhang, 2015). In the analysis of Reddit posts, comments from users with conservative-leaning Reddit behavior received more negative scores. In the survey, individuals who did not lean toward the Democratic Party perceived discussions more negatively.

Thus, even though visitors have a foundation of shared interest in a non-political topic, it is important for researchers and practitioners to note that this commonality does not make the subreddit immune from problems of toxicity and intolerance typically associated with political discussions. This finding is particularly striking given how r/thebachelor is a female-dominated space, which separates it from other Reddit spaces characterized in past research as susceptible to toxic masculinity and lack of female engagement (Kilgo et al., 2018; Massanari, 2017).

While subreddit visitors help to shape norms of discussion, each subreddit also has moderators that can dictate policies, including whether political posts are allowed. For example, the rules on the r/BigBrother subreddit ban “personal politics.” On r/survivor, posts are required to be directly related to the show, such as discussing a contestant or using a show meme to comment on current events. These subreddits generally do not have generic political discussion threads (that do not have to be directly tied to the show), which appeared on r/thebachelor and, to a lesser extent, r/RuPaulsDragRace. The amount of political discourse observed on r/thebachelor was shaped in part by the willingness of moderators to create space for these discussions.

We have reason to believe that concerns about civility extend to other reality TV communities, which may discourage subreddits from creating space for political talk. Two non-Bachelor reality TV moderating teams responded to inquiries from the research team about political posts in their communities. The moderating teams noted that, oftentimes, political posts seem to try to spark arguments among visitors. One moderator said, “later in 2020 was full of people wanting to discuss their US candidate choices in a way that wasn’t conducive to a civil environment.” Similarly, a moderator remarked, “There were a lot of posts made by people with the sole intent to get people riled up.” In and outside of r/thebachelor, a built-in shared interest in reality TV does not protect the platform from incivility.

While our findings indicate there is no guarantee that political engagement in spaces dedicated to non-political topics can be as informative as traditional news consumption or fully civil and polite, that politics regularly seeps into seemingly non-political discussions casts doubt on concerns that segments of the public can remove themselves from political consumption (Prior, 2007). Instead, the nature of political discourse is changing as new avenues for political participation emerge in the digital world, expanding the practice of civic engagement. Especially in an increasingly polarized political climate where the public may have distorted perceptions of opposing political sides (Druckman et al., 2021; Settle, 2018), research focused on the benefits and limitations of non-political digital spaces for political engagement should be explored. Future research can examine moderation policies, subject content, and platform affordances that improve the reach of these forums in activating less politically interested audiences while encouraging less toxic environments that are open to diverse viewpoints.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448221099180 – Supplemental material for Roses and thorns: Political talk in reality TV subreddits

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-nms-10.1177_14614448221099180 for Roses and thorns: Political talk in reality TV subreddits by Amanda Chen and Katherine T McCabe in New Media & Society

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Katherine T McCabe

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author biographies

Amanda Chen is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in the Department of Political Science.

Katherine T McCabe is an assistant professor at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in the Department of Political Science.

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