TY - GEN

T1 - Content Sharing in Conflictual Ad-Hoc Twitter Discussions

T2 - 2nd International Conference on Digital Transformation and Global Society, DTGS 2017

AU - Bodrunova, Svetlana S.

AU - Smoliarova, Anna S.

AU - Blekanov, Ivan S.

AU - Litvinenko, Anna A.

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Recently, the growing role of social network users in content dissemination has brought to life the concept of secondary gatekeeping – selection and republication of content already selected and published by traditional gatekeepers. Secondary gatekeeping is believed to be raising the media in-platform visibility, but it may also have negative effects such as adding to creation of echo chambers and deepening the gaps between conflicting views. Such studies are particularly relevant for emergencies or social conflicts where sharing relevant content may be crucial for lowering social unease. But till today the nature of secondary gatekeeping remains highly understudied. We have conducted a comparative study of three ad-hoc Twitter discussions on heated ethnic/racial conflicts in the USA (Ferguson riots), Germany (Köln mass abuse), and Russia (Biryulyovo anti-migrant bashings) to assess the patterns of content sharing by active discussants. We used vocabulary-based web crawling and human coding of over 1,000 tweets in randomized samples. Our results show that, in all cases, there’s weak but significant correlation between the type of user and his/her attitude to minority with the attitudes expressed in content, while it is not always true that users prefer the same gatekeeper type, e.g. online or social media. As difference between individual users remains statistically significant, this may mean that the nature of heated ad-hoc discussions facilitates formation of ‘individual-level filter bubbles’ in addition to bigger echo chambers.

AB - Recently, the growing role of social network users in content dissemination has brought to life the concept of secondary gatekeeping – selection and republication of content already selected and published by traditional gatekeepers. Secondary gatekeeping is believed to be raising the media in-platform visibility, but it may also have negative effects such as adding to creation of echo chambers and deepening the gaps between conflicting views. Such studies are particularly relevant for emergencies or social conflicts where sharing relevant content may be crucial for lowering social unease. But till today the nature of secondary gatekeeping remains highly understudied. We have conducted a comparative study of three ad-hoc Twitter discussions on heated ethnic/racial conflicts in the USA (Ferguson riots), Germany (Köln mass abuse), and Russia (Biryulyovo anti-migrant bashings) to assess the patterns of content sharing by active discussants. We used vocabulary-based web crawling and human coding of over 1,000 tweets in randomized samples. Our results show that, in all cases, there’s weak but significant correlation between the type of user and his/her attitude to minority with the attitudes expressed in content, while it is not always true that users prefer the same gatekeeper type, e.g. online or social media. As difference between individual users remains statistically significant, this may mean that the nature of heated ad-hoc discussions facilitates formation of ‘individual-level filter bubbles’ in addition to bigger echo chambers.

KW - Content sharing

KW - Inter-ethnic conflict

KW - Online discussions

KW - Secondary gatekeeping

KW - Twitter

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85034450409&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_1

DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_1

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85034450409

SN - 9783319697833

VL - 745

T3 - Communications in Computer and Information Science

SP - 3

EP - 15

BT - Digital Transformation and Global Society - 2nd International Conference, DTGS 2017, Revised Selected Papers

PB - Springer Nature

Y2 - 20 June 2017 through 22 June 2017

ER -