Negativity and Incivility in Engagement with Facebook Partisan Pages (2008–2020)

This OSF repository hosts data documentation, code, and supplementary materials for the paper “Negativity vs. Incivility: How We Engage with Partisan Content on Facebook Over Time.” The study examines how two related but distinct forms of affective political language, negativity and incivility, are associated with multiple engagement signals on Facebook, and how these associations evolve over time. Using posts from 1,493 U.S. partisan Facebook Pages collected via CrowdTangle, the analysis spans January 1, 2008 to November 17, 2020. Engagement outcomes include Comments, Shares, Likes, and Facebook reaction types available from February 23, 2016 (Angry, Love, Haha). The primary analyses use a 10% random sample of eligible posts, with mixed-effects negative binomial regression models to estimate both average associations over the full period and gradual changes in associations across years.