Cyber neutralisation and flaming

ABSTRACT Individuals are increasingly subjected to flaming or negative behaviours as society becomes digitally adept. Existing research on flaming is largely fragmented and insufficient to understand what induces individuals to engage in flaming actions online. Neutralisation theory, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), and motivational theory are integrated to develop a theoretical model to better understand flaming in virtual communities. A large-scale online questionnaire targeting individuals who had experience with flaming in a virtual community was employed to analyse the research model. The results indicate that neutralisation techniques acceptability, enjoyment, subjective norms, and low self-control significantly influence flaming. Enjoyment, low moral beliefs, subjective norms, and low self-control influence neutralisation techniques acceptability, or efforts made by individuals to rationalise their deviant behaviour. Neutralisation techniques acceptability is highly correlated with flaming in virtual communities, which has not previously been examined. Intrinsic motivation or enjoyment influences flaming, which is important because neutralisation theory and the TPB do not account for motivation. Virtual communities have a tremendous amount of influence towards an individual's rationalisation of and repeated engagement in flaming. The government, Internet service providers, the media, virtual communities, and Internet activists have an opportunity to define appropriate online behavioural standards that diminish the prevalence of flaming.