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Content Sharing in Conflictual Ad-Hoc Twitter Discussions: National Patterns or Universal Trends?

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Digital Transformation and Global Society (DTGS 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 745))

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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been supported in full by Russian Science Foundation (research grant 16-18-10125).

The authors are grateful to Karl Binger for his help in content coding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg State University, 7-9 Universitetskaya nab., 199004, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Svetlana S. Bodrunova, Anna S. Smoliarova & Ivan S. Blekanov

  2. Freie Universität Berlin, Garystrasse 55, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Anna A. Litvinenko

Authors
  1. Svetlana S. Bodrunova
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  2. Anna S. Smoliarova
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  3. Ivan S. Blekanov
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  4. Anna A. Litvinenko
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Svetlana S. Bodrunova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Daniel A. Alexandrov

  2. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Alexander V. Boukhanovsky

  3. ITMO University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Andrei V. Chugunov

  4. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Yury Kabanov

  5. National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Olessia Koltsova

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Bodrunova, S.S., Smoliarova, A.S., Blekanov, I.S., Litvinenko, A.A. (2017). Content Sharing in Conflictual Ad-Hoc Twitter Discussions: National Patterns or Universal Trends?. In: Alexandrov, D., Boukhanovsky, A., Chugunov, A., Kabanov, Y., Koltsova, O. (eds) Digital Transformation and Global Society. DTGS 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 745. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69784-0_1

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