Saying it with a smile: Tone modifying emojis and violations of civility norms in public debate

This article examines how emojis function as tone modifying pragmatic resources in incivil political debate on social media. Using four Facebook discussion threads posted by the Danish public broadcaster DR in June 2024, the study investigates how participants deploy emojis in comments and replies responding to televised political debate clips. Following Muddiman (2017) the analytical framework distinguishes personal incivility—violations of interpersonal politeness norms—from public incivility—violations of deliberative norms in public discourse. Building on evidence that personal incivility is perceived as more severe, the study asks how users employ emojis to either soften or intensify face threatening acts across these domains.
The results show that emoji mediated tone modification is substantially more frequent in replies than in top level comments, reflecting the interpersonal addressivity inherent in reply threads. Notably, emojis functioning as softeners occur slightly more often than those that heighten conflict, even in hostile exchanges. These findings indicate that counterfactually presupposed norms of civility shape user behaviour, and that emojis serve as important semiotic tools for mitigating interpersonal risk, regulating tone, and signalling stance in online political debate.