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To comprehensively understand online communication behavior, a theoretical framework applied must capture the whole range of ambivalence between toxic and prosocial forms of online engagement. Although the concept of the Online Disinhibition Effect (ODE) provides a useful ground, it is theoretically underdeveloped. Building on the ODE and adding relevant aspects through a literature review, we propose a comprehensive model consisting of three analytical dimensions: (1) (intra-)individual and social antecedents including personal traits, attitudes, group characteristics, and cultural contexts and values, (2) communication and media environments as antecedents comprising platform affordances as well as news characteristics, and (3) (situational) correlates which include individuals’ situational states as well as user interactions and dynamics. Our Online Communication Disinhibition Model (OCDM) is able to capture individual and public communication on diverse platforms and in different modalities and can be used to study disinhibition in various subdisciplines of media and communication studies.

Do journalistic relevance criteria still matter in digital news environments where news is selected and aggregated by algorithms? This article investigates how news factors (e.g., conflict, power elite) influence users’ news attention and selective exposure on the news aggregator website Google News. Alongside direct effects, the study also examines indirect effects of news factors on users’ news selection processes via media cues of news items on the news aggregator website (e.g., picture, position, and recency). The study relies on the news value theory and analyzes observations of users’ news attention and selective exposure on Google News via eye tracking (N = 47 participants, N = 751 news items). We conducted a content analysis on all news items on Google News that users paid attention to. The results show that news factors do not have direct effects on news attention and selective exposure, but rather indirect effects mediated via media cues of news items. Consequently, the traditional idea of newsworthiness based on professional journalistic norms continues to play a role on a news aggregator where news is selected by algorithms.