724552

research-article2017
JLSXXX10.1177/0261927X17724552Journal of Language and Social PsychologyWalther et al.

Article
Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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The Effect of Bilingual © The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0261927X17724552
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Comments on YouTube

Joseph B. Walther1, German Neubaum2,

Leonie Rösner2, Stephan Winter3,
and Nicole C. Krämer2

Abstract
Social media offer a global village in which user-generated comments from different groups
and many languages appear. Extending the notion of prototypes in social identification
theory, research examined the persuasive influence of comments supporting or deriding
a public service announcement video on YouTube, where comments’ language either
matched or differed from the videos’. Bilingual participants watched videos in English or
Mandarin Chinese promoting water conservation, accompanied by comments in English
or Mandarin that supported or derided the videos’ message. Results replicated previous
findings about the valence of comments on public service announcement evaluations,
overridden by an interaction between valence and language congruity: Comments in
the same language as the videos’ affected readers’ evaluations of the video more than
did comments in the language other than the videos’.

Keywords
social media, user-generated comments, prototypes, social identification, bilingualism,
public service announcements

The Internet is a global medium, and content that a user generates in one locale or
culture can be consumed by others, elsewhere. Although many media such as books,

1Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

2University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
3University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Corresponding Author:
Joseph B. Walther, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological
University, 31 Nanyang Link, Singapore 637718, Singapore.
Email: jwalther@ntu.edu.sg
2 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

newspapers, and movies feature global distribution, contemporary Internet platforms

not only provide global transmission but potentially global participation in the cocre-
ation of content through user-generated comments:

Web 2.0, or social web sites . . . present and juxtapose messages that are generated by
different authorial sources: central messages posted by a web page’s proprietor, and user-
generated content that other readers contribute. These systems can both facilitate and
complicate social influence because they provide information from a variety of sources
simultaneously who possess different attributes and connote different relationships to
readers. (Walther & Jang, 2012, p. 2)

On product review sites, restaurant recommendations, or YouTube video and comment

pages, readers and writers may be from different groups, nations, cultures, or language
communities. As long as there is a minimal level of shared understanding for messages
to traverse group boundaries, Web 2.0 sites can facilitate participation from diverse
audiences.
Although many scholars have suggested that the Internet occludes presentation and
detection of the individual and group identities of its users, a number of alternative
positions argue, and demonstrate, that online communication enhances intergroup
identification (see, e.g., Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995). A simple graphical icon
can trigger prototypical intergroup identities of male versus female communicators,
even when an Internet user has reason to doubt the representational authenticity of the
display (E.-J. Lee, 2007). Many Web 2.0 sites also readily depict the identities of
users. These may be authorial identities, such as an ecommerce institutional sponsor,
or simply the peers of other readers who lent comments to the webpage content
(Walther & Jang, 2012). The degree to which a reader attaches a social identity to and
among the various message sources on a multiauthored website can affect the degree
of influence that opposing messages, linked to different types of authors, have on a
reader.
Nowhere might social identification in the form of prototypes be more pronounced
than when the content posted to a single site reflects different language groups. “The
use of particular languages . . .can convey a significant amount of social information
about speakers, such as their geographic background, ethnicity, and social class, as
well as stereotypes attributed regarding their traits,” according to Dragojevic, Giles,
and Watson (2013, p. 1). Previous research employing a bilingual group of readers
examined whether linguistically cued in-group or out-group identification affected
social influence of a YouTube video and same- or different-language comments sup-
porting or deriding the video’s persuasive message (Rösner, Winter, Walther, Krämer,
& Ganster, 2014). Inconsistent results from that research raised doubts whether, as had
been hypothesized, language-cued group identification influences a reader due to self-
categorization and identification with an in-group or out-group.
Alternatively, perceptions that one group possesses greater expertise in a discussion
than does another group may also play a role in social influence online (Jang, 2014).
For instance, despite the greater identification a male individual may have with males
Walther et al. 3

generally, a man may defer to a woman’s expertise regarding topics that are stereotypi-
cally associated with women’s interests (E.-J. Lee, 2007). Moreover, as the present
study explores, perceptions may not be based entirely in prototypical stereotypes about
a certain group, but, in a more fluid manner, may be derived from a match between the
language of a comment and that of the original message to which the comment refers.
It may be that we confer perceptions of greater expertise toward someone’s statements
who seems to understand the target of the statements more readily, as reflected by a
common language among both the source of a comment and the comment’s target.
The current study investigated these possibilities by systematically examining the
language and language-matching factors that could potentially affect persuasion
among bilingual readers of YouTube webpages that featured public service announce-
ment (PSA) videos and user-generated comments about the video. An experiment
employed bilingual readers who watched one of two similar YouTube PSA videos, in
one of two languages, and comments that either supported or denounced the PSA’s
message, in either the same or a different language. This focus on language congru-
ence as a factor in increasingly multicultural social media environments offers a
unique contribution to understanding persuasion in the global village.

Web 2.0 and Social Influence on YouTube

A variety of sources and approaches depict the persuasive nature of Web 2.0 sites.
Several theoretical approaches have been applied to online social influence across a
variety of applications, including hostile media perceptions (E.-J. Lee, 2012), elabora-
tion likelihood model (Winter & Krämer, 2012), warranting theory (Walther, Van Der
Heide, Hamel, & Shulman, 2009), and even notions from the 1950s related to credibil-
ity (Willemsen, Neijens, & Bronner, 2012) and congruity theory (Walther, Liang,
Ganster, Wohn, & Emington, 2012) adapted to contemporary settings. A number of
other approaches also exist. None, to date, appear to be particularly amenable to
understanding multilingual dynamics of participatory websites.
In terms of (monolingual) user-generated comments accompanying online videos,
research has examined the effect of comments about videos containing PSAs. A PSA
video, quite common in many countries’ television broadcasts and plentiful in online
social media, is generally produced by a nonprofit organization to convey information
or change the public’s attitude in a prosocial direction (see, for review, Bator &
Cialdini, 2000). When PSAs appear on YouTube, the user-generated comments other
readers post about the PSAs affect the influence of the PSAs’ messages on later read-
ers’ attitudes. Comments deriding a PSA can reverse the persuasive intent of the PSA
itself, as seen in research with PSAs regarding cigarette smoking (Shi, Messaris, &
Cappella, 2014) or the risks of marijuana (Walther, DeAndrea, Kim, & Anthony,
2010). Participants who read positive comments reflect more positive evaluations of
the videos than do those who read negative comments, about the same videos. Although
the present study focuses on other issues, a similar main effect is hypothesized to occur
with regard to the effect of the valence—positive versus negative content—of user-
generated comments and its effect on the evaluation of YouTube PSA videos:
4 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

Hypothesis 1: Readers of positive user-generated comments evaluate a PSA video

more favorably than do readers of negative comments.

Possible Intergroup Effects

A study by Rösner et al. (2014) further examined the effects of comments on the influ-
ence of PSAs with the additional consideration of the potential for different languages
among comments to affect the in-group identification of readers with YouTube com-
menters, thereby affecting social influence. Language can be a fundamental cue to
social identification (Jaspal, 2009; Kinzler, Shutts, DeJesus, & Spelke, 2009; Krauss
& Chiu, 1998). Research shows that a speaker’s language or accent evokes inferences
of a variety of traits and personality attributes (Abrams & Hogg, 1987; Hogg, Joyce,
& Abrams, 1984; Lambert, Anisfeld, & Yeni-Komshian, 1965; Lambert, Hodgson,
Gardner, & Fillenbaum, 1960). On that basis, Rösner et al. (2014) showed YouTube
pages to German university students who were bilingual with respect to German and
English. The webpages featured two antimarijuana PSA videos, as did Walther et al.
(2010), accompanied by pro-video or anti-video user-generated comments. In half the
cases, comments appeared in English, but in the other half, comments appeared in
German. The research hypothesized that the native Germans readers would identify
more strongly with commenters who posted in the German language, and therefore,
more strongly reflect attitudes cued by the German comments than when readers read
the same comments appearing in English.
Results of the study did not support predictions. Although the main effects of posi-
tive versus negative comments reappeared as in previous studies (Shi et al., 2014;
Walther et al., 2010), language-based identification results showed effects contrary to
predictions:

The influence of comment valence . . . was stronger for English comments than for
German comments. Participants reported greater identification with commenters who
wrote positive English comments . . . than for positive German comments . . . and slightly
lower levels of identification for negative English . . . than for negative German comments.
(Rösner et al., 2014, p. 15)

Several alternative explanations are possible. One is that English carries greater
appeal for bilingual speakers or cosmopolitan university students. To assess this simple,
rival hypothesis, a research question is tendered, which, if answered affirmatively, sug-
gests a plausible explanation for the unexpected persuasive effect of one language
(English) over another (German) in the Rösner et al. (2014) study. It is not clear, how-
ever, which language enjoys this greater privilege among English and Mandarin Chinese
bilinguals in the multilingual nation where the current study took place. Previous
research on regionalized versus Standard English in this country found no effect on the
persuasiveness of online comments that were written in English or Singlish (i.e., a col-
loquial form of English used in Singapore; Tan, Swee, Lim, Detenber, & Alsagoff,
2007), despite the researchers’ expectation that Standard English was more prestigious.
Walther et al. 5

Research Question 1: Do comments about YouTube videos written in one lan-

guage (English) have a different effect on bilingual readers’ evaluation of a PSA
videos than do comments written in another language (Mandarin)?

A more intriguing rival hypothesis is consistent with the notion of prototypical

expertise: There are situations in which a social group is surmised to have particular
knowledge or insight about a topic (see, e.g., Hollingshead & Fraidin, 2003; Huddy &
Terkildsen, 1993). This appears to have been the case in a study by J. Lee and Lim
(2014), who found that user-generated comments about a politician’s Facebook profile
were more influential when commenters were older users (who are potentially more
knowledgeable with regard to politics), among younger readers. Thus, it appears that
attitudes can be influenced more strongly by messages from one group than from
another, reflecting preferential perceptions about one group, regardless of in-group or
out-group identification or self-categorization with that group. If the language of com-
ments can also activate prototypical preferences, and if message receivers favor one
group as a message source over the other group, it may be that comments are more
influential if they appear in one language rather than in another, even if their com-
ments are semantically identical.
This alternative explanation suggests that the Rösner et al. (2014) experiment con-
tained a research design confound with respect to the consistent use of American
English videos, with variation only in the language of the comments that discussed the
videos. It evokes other variations of social identity theory that invoke consideration of
the relationship between multiple languages in a single discussion, focusing on the
notion of congruence. Following from the exposition of this theoretical possibility, it
is apparent that a complete cross of the language of the videos and the comments rep-
resent a more thorough research design and the opportunity to test an explanation for
the unexpected findings of Rösner et al. (2014).

Identification and Language Matching

Although social influence is often facilitated by one’s identification with a persuader
who appears to share in-group membership, this is not always the case. Research
finds that greater social influence may occur when message receivers detect a congru-
ence between the identity of a speaker and the focus of the discussion. In the cogni-
tive process proposed by social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), people tend
to identify others into groups using membership cues about the individual’s member-
ship in a certain social category such as sex or race. This categorization process is
based on prototypes, that is, a “fuzzy set of attributes” (Hogg, 2006, p. 118), or quali-
ties that are generally shared within a group, but that other groups do not appear to
possess. Based on prototypes, some groups may represent better sources of influence
than others when, for instance, a particular knowledge is stereotypically linked to the
specific cue that has induced the activation of a prototype (cf. “sex-linked knowledge
bias” in E.-J. Lee, 2007). In an online discussion, for instance, E.-J. Lee (2007) found
that people’s opinions reflected greater social influence from a conversational partner
6 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

when a simple cue about the gender of a partner was congruent with the topic (mas-
culine or feminine) of the discussion (see also Hollingshead & Fraidin, 2003).
At the same time, there may be cases where no particular group possesses a stereo-
typical or prototypical advantage in terms of status or expertise with respect to a context
or topic. It is nevertheless possible, in a truly bilingual setting, that a primacy effect
emerges: The first language uttered may become the de facto standard, against which
another’s use of a second language signals divergence, that is, a strategic choice to dif-
fer from the standard. In many cases, linguistic divergence from a presumed standard,
or “code-switching,” incurs derogation of its utterer: As Dragojevic et al. (2013, p. 10)
review, “those who ‘insistently’ choose not to adhere to the standard are often thought
to be lacking in mental capacity or to suffer from some inherent flaw in character.” If
the principles of protypicality—especially if it emerges on the basis of linguistic pri-
macy, ad hoc—extends to the expression of online comments in the same or in a differ-
ent language than the videos they follow, we should expect that comments are perceived
to be better integrated and expertly informed, and more persuasive, when they match
the language of the message to which they refer, rather than when they do not match.
It is possible, then, that greater expertise may be attributed to commenters who
discuss a YouTube video in the same language that the video, itself, employs. Such
commenters may be perceived as having a greater implicit understanding of the video,
and their evaluations of the video, therefore, may garner more persuasive weight. In
this sense, the effect of prototypes is not rooted in a reader’s perception that one lan-
guage group has a consistent advantage in cosmopolitanism or expertise than some
other language group. Rather, commenters who write about a video in the same lan-
guage as a video may be perceived to possess greater insight into the video’s meaning
and merits, pro or con, than may individuals who may not be apparently as fluent or
fluid with the language that the video also features. These arguments lead to an alter-
native set of hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2: The positive versus negative content of comments about YouTube

videos exerts the greatest effect on readers’ responses to PSA videos when the com-
ments’ language is the same as the language of the PSA they discuss, compared
with when comments are in a different language than that of the PSA.
Hypothesis 2a: The effect of positive versus negative comments on readers’ evalu-
ation of the PSA is greater when the comments’ language is the same as the PSA’s
language.
Hypothesis 2b: The effect of positive versus negative comments on readers’ atti-
tudes toward the topic is greater when the comments’ language is the same as the
PSA’s language.

If the mechanism underlying the hypothesized difference is that readers perceive

that commenters who use the same language as the PSAs better understand the mean-
ing and nuances of the PSAs, then readers’ perceptions of the commenters expertise
should be greater when the language of PSAs and comments are congruent rather than
incongruent.
Walther et al. 7

Hypothesis 3: Readers attribute greater expertise to commenters whose comments

appear in the same language as a PSA’s.
Hypothesis 4: The persuasive effect of language congruence between PSA and
comments on (a) the evaluation of the PSA and (b) recipients’ attitudes toward the
topic is mediated by the perceived expertise of commenters.

Method
Sample
Participants were bilingual Mandarin Chinese and English speakers among undergrad-
uate students at a large university in Singapore. Although English is the language of
instruction in this university, the nation recognizes four official languages—English,
Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil (Indian)—and educational efforts require that students
develop skill both in English and in the language of their heritage (Sim, 2016). As such,
a majority of the citizens are fully literate in both English and Mandarin (see Department
of Statistics Singapore, 2017). Recruiting announcements appeared with English and
Mandarin sections of text, stating that being bilingual is a prerequisite for participation.
A total of 198 students took part in the experiment but 7 were excluded from analysis
since they stated in a posttest questionnaire that they did not speak either Chinese or
English. The remaining 191 participants (64 males) reported speaking both languages
fluently. The sample included 63.9% Singaporeans, 34% Chinese, 0.5% Indian, and
1.6% “other.” Participants’ age ranged from 19 to 26 years (M = 21.26, SD = 1.61). For
taking part in the experiment, participants received SGD5.

Experimental Design and Stimulus Materials

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the 16 stimulus conditions resulting
from the 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design that reflected the following factors: lan-
guage of the video (Mandarin/English), language of the comments (Mandarin/
English), positive versus negative valence of the comments, and two replicates of a
PSA video on the same topic.

Stimulus YouTube Page.  Mock-ups of YouTube pages were created using graphics editing
software. For every experimental condition, a webpage included the generic features of
all YouTube pages and a PSA video. As on the actual YouTube platform, viewers were
able to start the video by clicking on the play symbol with the mouse (see Figure 1).

Videos.  Two PSA videos were created by college students in a course on environmen-
tal communication at a university in Singapore. The videos featured actors of the same
(Chinese Singaporean) ethnic heritage as the research participants. Both videos pro-
moted the importance of saving water to protect the environment. The video, “To
Jasper” (duration: 1:38 minutes), showed a young mother interacting with her 4-year-
old son. Over the course of the video, the woman narrates how she explained to her son
8 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

Figure 1.  Example of a YouTube stimulus showing the public service announcement (PSA)
video alongside user-generated comments.

where water comes from and how important it is to save this resource. The other video,
“WaterUWaitingFor” (duration: 1:30 minutes), featured a series of scenes which dis-
play people carrying out different domestic activities in which water is involved (e.g.,
a young woman brushing her teeth). Between these scenes written text displayed sta-
tistics about water consumption (e.g., “We waste 20 liters of water by leaving the tap
running while brushing teeth”).
For each video, a Mandarin and an English version was created. Since the original
material was in English, the voice in “To Jasper” was dubbed in Mandarin, whereas
the English text in “WaterUWaitingFor” was translated into Mandarin and replaced the
English text using video-editing software.

Comments.  Researchers culled a total of 40 user comments expressing a positive or

negative attitude toward conservation or the PSA from actual YouTube pages with
water conservation PSAs. All comments were originally in English. Five raters1 scored
Walther et al. 9

each of these 40 comments based on two criteria: The comments’ valence, assessed on
a 3-point scale (1 = negative, 2 = neutral, 3 = positive), with an interrater reliability
Cronbach’s α = .95; and argument quality, to make sure that comments did not differ
with regard to their persuasiveness. Raters assessed whether comments included no
argument (= 1), a weak argument (= 2) or a strong argument (= 3), interrater α = .75.2
Based on these ratings, 10 comments were selected that were rated as the most posi-
tive toward water conservation (e.g., “I like this video. It brought this well information
of this epedemic [sic] and it helped me understand more about water scarcity” and “It
certainly makes sense to use water carefully as we pay our water bill based on how
much we use. Besides, water is such a precious resource. Let’s do our part to make a
difference”) and the 10 comments which were rated as the most negative toward this
topic (“There is no water shortage. Our planet is not running out of water, nor is it los-
ing water. There’s about 360 quintillion gallons of water on the planet, and it’s not
going anywhere except in a circle” and “I don’t think because we the richer people use
water, others get less water, the ocean is full of it”). Argument quality was equally
distributed within each valence category, and most comments featured a medium level
of argument quality (ranging from M = 1.60 to M = 2.60).
After selecting comments according to valence, comments were translated into
Mandarin Chinese by six graduate students who were native Mandarin speakers and
also fluent in English. In order to keep the meaning of comments constant across both
languages, Mandarin comments were back-translated to English by an additional
bilingual graduate student. Both versions of the comments were then compared and,
when discrepancies appeared, the back-translator made adjustments.3
On each stimulus YouTube page, 10 comments appeared. Even though the ratio of
positive to negative comments on a social media page can affect readers’ cognition and
decisions (Li, Feng, Chen, & Bell, 2015), Shi et al. (2014) determined that it is uncom-
mon to see 10 comments which exclusively support or exclusively deride a video on
YouTube. Therefore, a ratio of 8:2 for the comments’ valence was chosen, so that the
seventh and ninth comment among the 10 had the opposite valence of the other eight.

Measures
PSA Evaluation.  Eight items from prior research (Kang, Cappella, & Fishbein, 2006;
Walther et al., 2010) assessed participants’ evaluation of the PSA. On a 7-point scale
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), participants stated their agreement
with items like “The PSA I just watched was convincing” or “The PSA I just watched
would keep me from wasting water,” α = .93.

Attitudes Toward Water Conservation.  The measurement of participants’ attitudes toward

water conservation comprised a 7-point semantic differential with eight items: wise/
foolish, useful/useless, worthless/valuable, favorable/unfavorable, bad/good, mean-
ingless/meaningful, desirable/undesirable, and important/unimportant. Reversed items
were recoded so that a higher mean score indicated a more positive attitude toward
water conservation, α = .84.
10 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

Perceived Expertise of Commenters.  Five items from the qualification subscale of Berlo,
Lemert, and Mertz’s (1969) credibility measure reflected the extent to which partici-
pants perceived the commenters as experts. On a 7-interval semantic differential, par-
ticipants rated commenters as trained/untrained, experienced/inexperienced, qualified/
unqualified, skilled/unskilled, and informed/uninformed. A higher mean reflected
greater perceived expertise of the commenters, α = .92.

Procedure
The experiment took place in a computer laboratory over 2 weeks. Participants ini-
tially completed a questionnaire about their prior experience with YouTube (which
showed that they were all very familiar with the platform). Then, they were instructed
to watch the PSA on YouTube and to look at the comments appearing below the video.
After viewing the page, participants completed questionnaires comprising the depen-
dent measures and demographic questions. All questions and instructions included in
the questionnaire were in English.

Results
Hypothesis 1 predicted a main effect of the comments’ valence on recipients’ evaluation
of the PSA. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) assessed the effect of the positive
versus negative valence of the comments on PSA evaluations. A significant main effect
supported the hypothesis, F(1, 189) = 8.53, p = .004, ηp2 = .04. When the PSA was pre-
sented with supportive comments, the video was evaluated better (M = 4.58, SD = 1.06)
than when the PSA was presented with derisive comments (M = 4.09, SD = 1.24).
Research Question 1 asked whether comments appearing in either the English or
Mandarin language affected PSA evaluations more strongly than did the other lan-
guage. This question allowed the research to rule in or rule out whether there is a
prototype associated with either language that renders it more persuasive, testing a
rival explanation for the results of previous research that found a bias toward English
comments when comments appeared in either English or German. The test of Research
Question 1 was conducted by testing for an interaction between comment language
and comment valence, since greater persuasiveness for one language would lead to
more favorable PSA evaluations when comments were positive, and more negative
PSA evaluations when comments were negative, than when comments appeared in the
other language. The ANOVA test of the interaction of comment language × comment
valence was not significant, F(1, 187) = 3.11, p = .08.
Hypothesis 2 predicted an interaction effect of comment valence and language con-
gruence on (a) the evaluation of the PSA and (b) attitudes toward water conservation.
To test Hypothesis 2, a new variable, “language match,” was created to indicate when
video and comments used the same language (1 = matched) or when the languages of
the video and the comments differed (2 = unmatched).
A factorial ANOVA with language match and comment valence as independent
variables revealed a significant interaction of language match and comment valence
Walther et al. 11

on PSA evaluation, F(1, 187) = 8.87, p = .003, ηp2 = .05. When the languages of the
video and comments differed, there was no difference between positive versus nega-
tive comments on viewers’ evaluation of the PSA, t(92) = −.05, n.s.; Mpos = 4.56,
SDpos = 1.12, Mneg = 4.57, SDneg = 1.21. In contrast, when the languages of the video
and comments matched, viewers who saw positive comments expressed more favor-
able evaluations of the video (Mpos = 4.60, SDpos = 1.02) than did readers of negative
comments (Mneg = 3.65, SDneg = 1.09), t(95) = 4.41, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.90. Thus,
only under conditions of a language match did the valence of the comments signifi-
cantly influence responses, which supports Hypothesis 2a.
The analyses also yielded main effects of comment valence, F(1, 187) = 8.48, p = .004,
ηp2 = .04, and for language match, F(1, 187) = 7.41, p = .007, ηp2 = .04, on evaluations of
the PSAs. Although evaluations of PSAs were more favorable when the language of the
comments mismatched the language of the video (M = 4.57, SD = 1.16) compared with
when the languages of the video and comments matched (M = 4.11, SD = 1.16), these
main effects are overridden by the significant interaction between comments’ language
match and valence.
Hypothesis 2b was not supported. The ANOVA did not reveal any significant
main or interaction effects on viewers’ attitudes toward water conservation, omnibus
F(1, 187) = 1.38, p = .242.
Hypothesis 3 predicted a main effect of language match between PSA and com-
ments on the perceived expertise of commenters. A factorial ANOVA with language
match and comment valence as independent variables did not yield the predicted
main effect of language match, F(1, 187) = .61, n.s., and, therefore, did not support
Hypothesis 3. However, there was a significant interaction effect between language
match and comment valence, F(1, 187) = 5.16, p = .024, ηp2 = .03. When viewers
saw predominantly positive comments, language match did not affect viewers’ per-
ception of commenters’ expertise, t(93) = -.96, n.s.; Mmatch = 3.75, SDmatched = 1.16,
Munmatched = 4.00, SDunmatched = 1.30. But when viewers saw predominantly negative
comments, language match significantly affected viewers’ perception of com-
menters’ expertise, t(94) = 2.40, p = .018, Cohen’s d = 0.49: When the language
matched, negative commenters were accorded greater expertise (Mmatched = 3.07,
SDmatched = 1.07) than when the language of negative comments did not match the
language of the video (Munmatched = 2.57, SDunmatched = 0.95).
Results also revealed an unanticipated main effect of comment valence on per-
ceived expertise, F(1, 187) = 41.57, p < .001, ηp2 = .18. Participants attributed greater
expertise to people who posted positive comments (M = 3.88, SD = 1.23) than to
people who posted negative comments (M = 2.83, SD = 1.04).
Hypothesis 4 involved a mediation test of perceived expertise explaining the effect
of language match on (a) the PSA evaluation and (b) attitudes toward water conserva-
tion. For Hypothesis 4a, language match was included as independent variable, per-
ceived expertise was a mediator, and PSA evaluation was the dependent variable. The
mediation analyses employed the SPSS macro INDIRECT (Preacher & Hayes, 2008),
running 5,000 bootstrap resamples (with a bias corrected 95% confidence interval) for
every model. Two models were calculated, one for comments with a positive valence
12 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

Figure 2.  Mediation model including unstandardized regression coefficients for the language
match (1 = matched/2 = unmatched) as independent variable, perceived expertise of
commenters as mediator, and attitudes toward water conservation as dependent variable
(subsample with negative comments).
Note. The unstandardized regression coefficient between independent and dependent variable without
controlling for the mediator is in parentheses.
†p < .10. *p < .05.

and one for comments with a negative valence. However, both models revealed no
indirect effect of language match on PSA evaluation through perceived expertise.
Hypothesis 4b was tested following the same procedure as for Hypothesis 4a, but
included attitudes toward water conservation as the dependent variable. Again, one
mediation model was calculated for positive comments and another mediation model
was computed for negative comments. For positive comments, no mediation effect
was found. For negative comments, in contrast, the mediation analysis indicated an
effect of language match on attitudes toward water conservation mediated by per-
ceived expertise of commenters. Although no direct effect of language match on atti-
tudes toward water conservation was shown, indirect effects can also exist when a
significant total effect is absent (Hayes, 2013). In line with the theoretical proposition
of a simple mediation model, there was a decrease of the direct effect when perceived
expertise was considered in the calculations. The path estimate for the indirect effect
was .064 (LL = .0018, UL = .1900; see Figure 2 for further values). This finding sup-
ports Hypothesis 4b for comments with a negative valence. However, the effect of
perceived expertise of commenters on attitudes toward water conservation (Β = −.13)
was not significant (p = .06). Had it been stronger, it would suggest that the greater
expertise readers attributed to commenters, the more negative were their attitudes
toward water conservation.

Discussion
Social media’s persuasive potential is contingent on a host of factors, and the impact
of user-generated comments on other readers’ perceptions and attitudes comprises a
dynamic field of research and application. Identifying and adapting existing theories
Walther et al. 13

of communication and social psychology helps our understanding of when and why
online messages influence Internet users (see Walther, Tong, DeAndrea, Carr, & Van
Der Heide, 2011). Previous research has established that the comments that users add
to accompany YouTube videos have a persuasive effect on subsequent readers. User-
generated comments can accentuate or ameliorate the persuasive intent of a video
message, that is, the centerpiece of a YouTube display. When such videos are intended
to change prosocial behaviors in the realm of health or the environment, the influence
of user-generated comments on perceptions of those videos becomes a matter of sig-
nificant importance. This study, like others (Shi et al., 2014; Walther et al., 2010),
found that the comments left by YouTube viewers affect the evaluations by subsequent
readers, at least in terms of their perceptions of the videos’ quality and appeal, extend-
ing this general finding beyond marijuana and cigarette smoking, into the topic of
water conservation.
The current study also examined dynamics that can occur when different language
groups appear to participate in a single social media instance. Because social media
are global media, there is the potential for messages to conjure different national and
cultural social identities, and the nature of these identities, beyond the content of the
messages themselves, have the potential to affect perception of and reaction to the
messages. When the languages of messages differ within a single episode of the
medium, the similarity or dissimilarity among sources, as reflected by language, com-
prise an additional contingency factor that affects social influence in this setting.
Results of this study indicate that the match or mismatch between the languages of
video messages and user-generated comments is a significant factor in social influ-
ence. When the language of comments matched the language of videos, the comments
were more influential than when languages did not match.
The effect suggests a revised and extended view of the social identification pro-
cesses that have been suggested to operate in social media settings. One study of read-
ers’ reactions to YouTube comments supported a social identification/self-categorization
approach to the influence of social media commenters on subsequent readers’ reac-
tions (Walther et al., 2010). Using similar theoretical reasoning, a follow-up study
(Rösner et al., 2014) involving bilingual German research participants predicted that
readers would be more persuaded by user-generated comments that appeared in their
own language. The lack of support for that hypothesis, when the original video
appeared in English, raised the possibility that some sort of prototype may be operat-
ing. Even in social media settings, some social groups have stereotypical associations
with certain qualities or domains of expertise, and messages from members of such
groups are more influential than messages from individuals outside the group (e.g.,
E.-J. Lee, 2007; J. Lee & Lim, 2014). The power of prototypicality can override the
conventional dynamics of in-group bias with respect to social influence.
The present study’s focus on language congruence addresses this potential explana-
tion. It suggests that prototypical knowledge associations may be highly contextual.
They may be based not only on a topic per se, as previous social media studies con-
tended but alternatively, derived from the apparent, immediate, ad hoc knowledge that
seems to be displayed when individuals (commenters) elect not to signal similarity
14 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

with the originator of a prior message (the video) on which they comment, through the
use of a different language. To comment in the same language as a video may be to
approximate the prototype, and thereby, to signal possession of an acute understanding
of a message by exhibiting the ability to identify with and respond in kind to the char-
acteristics of that message; to signal membership in a group that has a command over
the content under discussion. Results suggest that readers lend credence to commenters
who critique the original author’s messages (i.e., the videos) who are members of the
video author’s own group, more than they do to commenters who do signal nonmem-
bership by writing in a different language.
However, the underlying mechanisms of this effect cannot be explained entirely by
the hypothesis that readers ascribed greater expertise to commenters whose language
matched that of the PSA. A main effect of positive versus negative comment valence
on perceived expertise emerged: In general, those people commenting favorably on
the content of the PSA received greater expertise ratings, compared with those who
posted negative comments. However, commenters displaying negative attitudes
appeared more expert only when their language matched that of the PSA. Given the
normative opinion favoring water conservation in the society where data were gath-
ered, it may be that comments which deviated from the mainstream opinion overcame
a rejection bias only when their authors seemingly connected to the PSA via language.
Under these conditions only, the results show a moderate attitude change. When read-
ing negative comments, observers’ opinions shifted only when commenters’ language
matched that of the PSA.
A simpler explanation would be that prototypicality is not necessarily conveyed by
same-language congruence, but rather, that language prototypicality is established
through primacy in a truly bilingual setting, and divergence from this ad hoc standard
arouses negative reactions. This explanation is potentially (but not ultimately) consis-
tent with at least three different approaches to language and intergroup dynamics:
code-switching, communication accommodation, and processing fluency.
Code-switching, as reviewed by Gasiorek (2016, p. 14), refers to “the use of two or
more languages or dialects in the same stretch of speech by bilingual or bidialectical
speakers.” Although code-switching is sometimes conceived as unconscious, or as a
benign response to changes in topic or the linguistic abilities of new audience mem-
bers, it may also “express (dis)identification or (dis)affiliation with certain others or
other groups” (Gasiorek, 2016, p. 15). In the present context, disaffiliation may be
signaled when commenters code-switch into a different language than the video’s.
This code-switch, diverging from the language of the PSA, might seem sensible to
readers when comments were also negative with regard to the PSA, and such a congru-
ity might make those doubly divergent comments (in both language and content) more
persuasive. Such an effect was refuted by the results, however.
Likewise, communication accommodation theory (CAT; see for review, Giles, 2016)
offers a potential explanation for the reduced influence of commenters whose language
diverges from that of the initial video, at least until we also consider the valence of the
comments’ content. Although CAT tends to focus on message receivers’ reactions to
language convergence or divergence (as well as other forms of communication), it may
Walther et al. 15

also extend to the evaluations by audiences who observe other actors’ accommodation
behaviors (as in mass media portrayals and elsewhere; see Harwood & Roy, 2005). In
this paradigm, too, communicators who fail to accommodate (who diverge, underac-
commodate, or overaccommodate) to another’s language pattern are perceived to signal
group disidentification, and are disparaged and disliked; “according to CAT, speakers’
perceptions of each other’s behavior lead to attributions and then evaluations” (Gasiorek
& Giles, 2012, p. 309). The present findings (commenters whose language mismatched
the videos’ language are more dismissed than those who matched) are consistent with
this notion. However, the case in which the language diverged, but the content of lin-
guistically divergent comments nevertheless praised the videos, makes less clear at
what level accommodation or nonaccommodation actually occurred insofar as readers’
perceptions go.
A simpler solution yet may be found in recent research on processing fluency and
language attitudes. Dragojevic and Giles (2016) have posited an explanation for the
disparagement of speakers with foreign-accented speech that places social stereotyping
of speakers as secondary, and the simple difficulty of understanding others as the pri-
mary cause of negative evaluations of others. The theoretical explanation focuses on
the negative affective effects that result from difficulty in understanding other people.
When it is more effortful to understand other persons, whether due to their accent or due
to a high level of ambient noise during conversation, individuals’ message processing
fluency declines, and this factor, alone, causes them to dislike the speakers to whom
they are attending. (Receivers may or may not follow this affective reaction with post
hoc attributions about the speaker’s characteristics; Dragojevic, Giles, Beck, & Tatum,
2017). This explanation may pertain to the present results: If comments appear in a
language other than the videos’, it may incur additional processing effort, even among
bilingual readers. The potential increase in processing effort may have led to negative
affect toward the linguistically mismatched commenters, and to disparagement of their
comments. This framework provides a good account of the results showing that linguis-
tically mismatched comments were less influential, which is immune to the otherwise
confounding potential raised by the valence of the comments’ content. Of course, addi-
tional research can help rule in or rule out these competing explanations.
The study has several limitations that future research may address. The topic of the
videos and comments in this study was not the same as in previous studies that exam-
ined YouTube videos and comments. Beneficially, the change in topic to water conser-
vation, from cigarette smoking and marijuana risks, adds generalizability regarding
the underlying dynamic, replicating the effects of positive and negative comments on
the perceptions of the quality of PSAs. Nevertheless, the topic, in the present case,
may invoke a ceiling effect on attitude change. As seen in the analysis of Hypothesis
2, language matching between comments and videos match had no influence on read-
ers’ attitudes about water conservation when comments were positive. It is likely that
readers’ attitudes about water conservation were very favorable, as a baseline, before
exposure to the experimental treatment. If this is so, there would be little effect possi-
ble of positive comments in making attitudes even more favorable. The only effect that
would be possible, if this assumption is correct, would be to influence attitudes to be
16 Journal of Language and Social Psychology 00(0)

less positive. Indeed, this is what did occur, especially when the language of comments
and videos matched, more than when they did not match. Future research could include
a control condition—an online video without user comments—to provide an attitude
baseline with which to contrast the effects of comments.
Second, this study adopted Mandarin Chinese and English as the languages that
could match or mismatch, whereas the previous effort by examining bilingual presen-
tations on YouTube (Rösner et al., 2014) examined German and English. Although the
research participants in both studies were bilingual, the populations may have differed
in other unstudied respects. It is possible that English (or Mandarin or German) had
different connotations between these populations, regarding perceived expertise, cos-
mopolitanism, or other characteristics. Moreover, in the current study, a majority of
participants are likely to have understood English as a first language, whereas in the
previous study, English was more likely to have been a second language. Whether
these patterns affected participants’ stereotypes about or attitudes toward these lan-
guages is not known. More careful assessment of these factors in future research may
tease out moderators that can help clarify language attitudes.
It has been said that the Internet has helped facilitate what McLuhan (1964) called
the “global village” where media bring to our awareness events and issues from around
the world, and prompt our participation in them. At the time of the writing of the pres-
ent study, not only are political developments among superpowers and actions of
rogue states salient topics in traditional media, their developments are shared in social
media as well, with citizens around the world discussing, and often deriding, events
half a world away. These global conversations may increasingly be expected to involve
participants from a variety of cultures. Among those who may choose different lan-
guages for such discussions, they may choose to reflect the language of the original
story itself, that of their own domestic social network, or to distance themselves from
the tenor of such events by signaling, through an alternative language, that they are not
a part of the groups involved in the topics they discuss. Although the present study
ignored, for now, the strategic aspects of multilingual decisions about self-presenta-
tion in the global village of new media discussions, the outcomes of such decisions on
subsequent readers, as this research shows, has influential consequences on others
who watch, or potentially join, the global conversation.

Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the work of a number of individuals that was instrumental
to the execution of this study. The original video PSAs were created by Maruf Bin Aziz, Sophia
Chew You Min, Cheo Peijun, and Liew Yu Wei; A Preethi Devi, Clifford Lee, Joni Lim Xin Yi
Lim Li Zhen, Ng Bao Yi, and Quek Ming Jie. Translation was provided by Jeremy Sng, Jolie
Shi Jingyuan, Li Kevin Jinhui, Li Li, Pei Emma Xin, Xiaohui Vincent Wang, and Schusie Sun.
The Chinese voiceover was provided by Mabellina Lim. Video editing was performed by Sim
Yu Ling. Background research assistance was provided by Shermaine Lau, Cai-Yun Chong,
Rebecca Faith Iskander, Dr. Thanomwong Poorisat, and Dr. Sonny Ben Rosenthal. Additionally,
the authors appreciate many thoughtful suggestions by two anonymous reviewers and the
Journal of Language and Social Psychology editor, Prof. Howard Giles.
Walther et al. 17

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by a Mercator Fellowship
in the Research Training Group “User-Centred Social Media” (Grant No. GRK 2167; German
Research Foundation); by the German Academic Exchange Service Grant 2014/15: 57044987;
and the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore.

Notes
1. Raters were three undergraduate and two graduate students.
2. Examples of the variation in argument quality include a relatively strong, negative argu-
ment, “There is no water shortage. Our planet is not running out of water, nor is it losing
water. There’s about 360 quintillion gallons of water on the planet, and it’s not going any-
where except in a circle”; a relatively moderate positive argument, “Advanced societies
should not waste this much and not only water and the energy required to use it/clean it, but
so many resources that could be recycled/reused”; and a relatively weak positive argument,
“It’s not about saving the environment. It’s about saving ourselves these are same things
cannot be different but is true we feel threat now.”
3. While the English comments (taken from the YouTube platform) included misspellings,
we took no steps to include misspellings in the Chinese translations. The overall analy-
ses suggest that misspellings confined to English comments had no effect on results even
if they might have affected argument quality perceptions: Since language-matched com-
ments were more persuasive than unmatched comments, regardless of what language they
appeared in, misspellings did not confound hypothesized effects.

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Author Biographies
Joseph B. Walther is the Wee Kim Wee professor in communication studies at Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. His research concerns the use of communicative cue sys-
tems in relational processes, with a particular focus on computer-mediated communication and
its impacts in interpersonal, group, intergroup, and educational settings.
German Neubaum is a postdoctoral researcher in the group Social Psychology–Media and
Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His research focuses on how the use of
contemporary social technologies influences users’ cognitions, emotions, and actions.
Specifically, he is interested in how people monitor, form, and express opinions on political
issues online.
Leonie Rösner is a researcher and PhD student in social and media psychology in the Social
Psychology–Media and Communication group at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Her
research interests include social influence processes in Web 2.0 settings, social norm percep-
tions, and normative effects in social media, as well as new media in crisis communication.
Stephan Winter received his PhD in 2012 from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
Currently, he is an assistant professor of persuasive communication at the University of
Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests include opinion formation and expression in
social media as well as information selection in online contexts.
Nicole C. Krämer is a professor for Social Psychology–Media and Communication at the
University Duisburg-Essen. She has a background in social and media psychology. Her research
interests include human-computer-interaction and computer-mediated communication, espe-
cially social media, specifically on forms and effects of social media usage related to impression
management, self-disclosure, or social comparison.