This book is motivated by a series of urgent questions surrounding online
vitriol. Even in a deeply polarized political climate, one common experience across the spectrum is the sense of simultaneous empowerment and powerlessness in response to prolific and persistent digitally mediated
communications. We are wondering how to evaluate, and what to do with,
the overwhelming amount of such activity, much of which can be considered
violent. What is online vitriol, as we have termed it throughout the book?
What does it mean? What is its intent? In what ways is this phenomenon
new compared to forms of violence or vitriolic texts in the broadest sense
from the past? How productive, in this context, is the dichotomy of online
and offline? And how can individuals, organizations, (media) companies
and governments respond to it?7