Showing papers in "First Monday in 2016"
TL;DR: The findings suggest that the presence of social media bots can indeed negatively affect democratic political discussion rather than improving it, which in turn can potentially alter public opinion and endanger the integrity of the Presidential election.
Abstract: Social media have been extensively praised for increasing democratic discussion on social issues related to policy and politics. However, what happens when this powerful communication tools are exploited to manipulate online discussion, to change the public perception of political entities, or even to try affecting the outcome of political elections? In this study we investigated how the presence of social media bots, algorithmically driven entities that on the surface appear as legitimate users, affect political discussion around the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. By leveraging state-of-the-art social bot detection algorithms, we uncovered a large fraction of user population that may not be human, accounting for a significant portion of generated content (about one-fifth of the entire conversation). We inferred political partisanships from hashtag adoption, for both humans and bots, and studied spatio-temporal communication, political support dynamics, and influence mechanisms by discovering the level of network embeddedness of the bots. Our findings suggest that the presence of social media bots can indeed negatively affect democratic political discussion rather than improving it, which in turn can potentially alter public opinion and endanger the integrity of the Presidential election.
767 citations
TL;DR: A content analysis of available media articles on political bots is conducted in order to build an event dataset of global political bot deployment that codes for usage, capability, and history, generating a global outline of this phenomenon.
Abstract: Over the last several years political actors worldwide have begun harnessing the digital power of social bots — software programs designed to mimic human social media users on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. Increasingly, politicians, militaries, and government-contracted firms use these automated actors in online attempts to manipulate public opinion and disrupt organizational communication. Politicized social bots — here ‘political bots’ — are used to massively boost politicians’ follower levels on social media sites in attempts to generate false impressions of popularity. They are programmed to actively and automatically flood news streams with spam during political crises, elections, and conflicts in order to interrupt the efforts of activists and political dissidents who publicize and organize online. They are used by regimes to send out sophisticated computational propaganda. This paper conducts a content analysis of available media articles on political bots in order to build an event dataset of global political bot deployment that codes for usage, capability, and history. This information is then analyzed, generating a global outline of this phenomenon. This outline seeks to explain the variety of political bot-oriented strategies and presents details crucial to building understandings of these automated software actors in the humanities, social and computer sciences.
241 citations
TL;DR: This paper describes the shift from the traditional notion of ‘code is law’ to the new conception of “law is code”, as many contractual transactions get transposed into smart contract code.
Abstract: “Code is law” refers to the idea that, with the advent of digital technology, code has progressively established itself as the predominant way to regulate the behavior of Internet users. Yet, while computer code can enforce rules more efficiently than legal code, it also comes with a series of limitations, mostly because it is difficult to transpose the ambiguity and flexibility of legal rules into a formalized language which can be interpreted by a machine. With the advent of blockchain technology and associated smart contracts, code is assuming an even stronger role in regulating people’s interactions over the Internet, as many contractual transactions get transposed into smart contract code. In this paper, we describe the shift from the traditional notion of “code is law” ( i.e. , code having the effect of law) to the new conception of “law is code” ( i.e. , law being defined as code).
119 citations
TL;DR: It is found that Facebook positions itself as a type of administrative identity registrar, raising vital questions regarding the ethics and consequences of identity enforcement online today.
Abstract: Despite the participatory and democratic promises of Web 2.0, many marginalized individuals with fluid or non-normative identities continue to struggle to represent themselves online. Facebook users, in particular, are told to use “authentic identities,” an idea reinforced throughout the site’s documentation, “real name” and other policies, and in public statements by company representatives. Facebook’s conception of authenticity and real names, however, has created problems for certain users, as demonstrated by the systematic deactivation of many accounts belonging to transgender and gender variant users, drag queens, Native Americans, abuse survivors, and others. In view of the struggles of marginalized users, Facebook policy appears paradoxical: the site simultaneously demands authenticity yet proscribes certain people from authentic self-presentation. In this work, we examine Facebook’s construction of “authenticity” and show how it excludes multifaceted, fluid, or non-normative identities. Using content analysis and close reading, we analyze site documentation and data from The Zuckerberg Files (an online archive of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public remarks) to understand the platform’s mechanisms for enforcing authenticity. We find that Facebook positions itself as a type of administrative identity registrar, raising vital questions regarding the ethics and consequences of identity enforcement online today.
109 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a large number of Arabic tweets referring to ISIS and classified them as pro-ISIS or anti-ISIS were collected and analyzed using a classifier to predict who will support or oppose the group.
Abstract: Lately, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has managed to control large parts of Syria and Iraq. To better understand the roots of support for ISIS, we present a study using Twitter data. We collected a large number of Arabic tweets referring to ISIS and classified them as pro-ISIS or anti-ISIS. We then analyzed the historical timelines of both user groups and looked at their pre-ISIS period to gain insights into the antecedents of support. Also, we built a classifier to ‘predict’, in retrospect, who will support or oppose the group. We show that ISIS supporters largely differ from ISIS opposition in that the former referred a lot more to Arab Spring uprisings that failed than the latter.
101 citations
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TL;DR: This essay disambiguates the many meanings of the word “open” as it is used in a wide range of contexts.
Abstract: Open source. Open access. Open society. Open knowledge. Open government. Even open food. The word “open” has been applied to a wide variety of words to create new terms, some of which make sense, and some not so much. This essay disambiguates the many meanings of the word “open” as it is used in a wide range of contexts.
70 citations
TL;DR: The results suggest that Snapchat is a site for intimacy in that pictures of double chins, ugliness and self-exposure are shared and these activities of photo-sharing and photo-communication bind young people in closeness and friendships.
Abstract: In this paper we investigate photo sharing practices among young people on the ephemeral social media platform Snapchat. What kind of photos are exchanged amongst 12–17 year olds via this app where pictures are elicited after up to 10 seconds? How is the content of the photos perceived by the young people themselves? We employ an Internet-mediated mixed methods approach. The primary empirical material consists of an online survey focusing on photo-elicitation practices on the two platforms Snapchat and Instagram conducted in 2015 and 2016 amongst Danish young people. Our results suggest that Snapchat is a site for intimacy in that pictures of double chins, ugliness and self-exposure are shared. These activities of photo-sharing and photo-communication bind young people in closeness and friendships. In this respect Snapchat differs from, for instance, Instagram where the pictures shared tend to be more polished, neat and perfect. The intimacy shared and maintained on Snapchat does, however, also cover nudes, dickpics and tarnished pictures. In this respect, intimacy entails both the comfort of sharing and the dramas of disruptions.
64 citations
TL;DR: The data suggest that the strongest motive for using dating apps is not for dating or sex, but for entertainment, and the more frequent users of these apps are people whose personalities are predisposed towards varied sexual partners.
Abstract: Dating apps on smartphones have brought speed dating on the Internet to a new level. This exploratory investigation sought to determine what kinds of people use these apps, what their motivations are, and what precautions they take before meeting someone. One hundred and seventy-three non-users and 57 current users of dating apps were surveyed. The data suggest that the strongest motive for using dating apps is not for dating or sex, but for entertainment. On the other hand, the more frequent users of these apps are people whose personalities are predisposed towards varied sexual partners. These different motives may represent a disconnect between those who wish to kill time and those who are seeking sexual partners.
51 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that as social media users adopt emojis, they dramatically reduce their use of emoticons, suggesting that these linguistic resources compete for the same communicative function, and that all forms of non-standard writing are losing out in a competition withEmojis.
Abstract: Many non-standard elements of ‘netspeak’ writing can be viewed as efforts to replicate the linguistic role played by nonverbal modalities in speech, conveying contextual information such as affect and interpersonal stance. Recently, a new non-standard communicative tool has emerged in online writing: emojis. These unicode characters contain a standardized set of pictographs, some of which are visually similar to well-known emoticons. Do emojis play the same linguistic role as emoticons and other ASCII-based writing innovations? If so, might the introduction of emojis eventually displace the earlier, user-created forms of contextual expression? Using a matching approach to causal statistical inference, we show that as social media users adopt emojis, they dramatically reduce their use of emoticons, suggesting that these linguistic resources compete for the same communicative function. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the adoption of emojis leads to a corresponding increase in the use of standard spellings, suggesting that all forms of non-standard writing are losing out in a competition with emojis. Finally, we identify specific textual features that make some emoticons especially likely to be replaced by emojis.
42 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that Internet research should engage critically with data visualization, and it does so by focusing on how people engage with them, and this research suggests that research into visualization engagement can benefit from adopting qualitative approaches developed within media audience research.
Abstract: As data become increasingly ubiquitous, so too do data visualisations, which are the main means through which non-experts get access to data. Most visualizations circulate and are shared online, and many of them are produced by Internet researchers. For these reasons, data visualization is an important object of study for Internet research. This paper proposes that Internet research should engage critically with data visualization, and it does so by focusing on how people engage with them. Drawing on qualitative, empirical research with users, in this paper we identify six factors that affect engagement, which we define as socio-cultural: subject matter; source/media location; beliefs and opinions; time; emotions; and confidence and skills. We argue that our findings have implications for how effectiveness is defined in relation to data visualizations: such definitions vary depending on how, by whom, where and for what purpose visualizations are encountered. Our research also suggests that research into visualization engagement can benefit from adopting qualitative approaches developed within media audience research.
37 citations
TL;DR: Understanding distraction, like attention, as both affective and cognitive, is explored, namely as rhythmic patterns in the affective fabric particular to the contemporary landscape of ubiquitous networked connectivity.
Abstract: The uses of social media can be seen as driven by a search for affective intensity translating as moments of paying attention, no matter how brief these instances may be. In the framework of attention economy, attention has been discussed as a valuable commodity whereas distraction, involving both pleasurable entertainment and dissatisfactory disorientation, has been associated with cognitive overload and the erosive lack of focus. By discussing clickbait sites and Facebook in particular, this paper inquires after the value of distractions in and for social media. Understanding distraction, like attention, as both affective and cognitive, this article explores its role in the affective capitalism of clicks, likes, and shares. Rather than conceptualizing attention and distraction as mutually opposing, I argue for conceptualizing them as the two sides of the same coin, namely as rhythmic patterns in the affective fabric particular to the contemporary landscape of ubiquitous networked connectivity.
TL;DR: This paper tracks the normalization of the term “binge watching” in the press and looks at the archives of the New York Times, Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, New York Post, Slate to trace the phrase and its evolving social relevance.
Abstract: “Binge watching” is a term associated with multiple practices of serial narrative consumption afforded by digital infrastructures. This paper tracks the normalization of the term “binge watching” in the press. I look at the archives of the New York Times, Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Daily News, New York Post, Slate , and the criticism of several prominent journalists from the 1980s to 2016 to trace the phrase and its evolving social relevance. I find that for journalists, the episode, not the hour is the fundamental unit of the “binge watch”. Journalists participated in the construction of “binge watching” as an all-consuming experience that takes place at the expense of daily life. At the same time, they contradicted this construction by using the term to represent practices of serial media consumption that fit seamlessly within existing patterns of work and leisure.
TL;DR: In this article, Peters argues for contingency, on the basis of an n increased from 1 to 2.37 or thereabouts, which is the number of nodes in the Internet.
Abstract: he 'small-n' challenge plagues all historians, but this problem of under-sized samples is especially acute in the history of science and technology. Most scientific discoveries seem to happen uniquely. We do sometimes see multiples — about half a dozen articulations of the principle of the conservation of energy or the periodic table around the same time, for example — but the diversity of specializations, the pace of communication and the vagaries of publishing mean that most innovations arise as single-tons, to use sociologist Robert Merton's term. The issue is perhaps most striking with the flagship technology of our present moment: the Internet. Here, we have an n of 1. This matters for two reasons. First, singletons frustrate generalization, making it difficult to draw lessons for science policy. Second is the related puzzle of contingency. We currently have an Internet, and it has a set of properties (such as the end-to-end principle , which stipulates that applications should happen at the edges of the network, rather than at intermediary nodes). Does it look like this because it has to, or are its features contingent characteristics of this specific Internet? Without alternatives to compare it to — a larger n — we just cannot say. In How Not to Network a Nation, communications specialist Benjamin Peters argues for contingency, on the basis of an n increased from 1 to 2. Well, to 1.37 or thereabouts. Historians have already started to chronicle networks past as useful comparisons. One is Project Cybersyn, an experiment to network the Chilean economy under president Salva-dor Allende in the 1970s, described in Eden Medina's Cybernetic Revolutionaries (MIT Press, 2011). Peters summarizes these well, but his quarry is the great white whale of this specialized historiography: the Soviet Inter-net. Whether there ever was such a thing, why it never moved beyond the project stage and which of the various projects between the late 1950s and the late 1980s can be properly classified as efforts to develop one are the main subjects of the book. Peters makes a good case to move beyond historian Slava Gerovitch's excellent pun on this seeming oxymoron: \" InterNyet \". His intuition is spot on. The cold-war origins of the US networking programme have been well documented, for example in Janet Abbate's Inventing the Internet (MIT Press, 1999). Direct military sponsorship was crucial. The defence department provided patronage through its Advanced Research Projects Agency, which …
TL;DR: The framework behind Simple Privacy is described and the choices made during development are discussed, which balance the requirements of the privacy legislation and the needs of both organisations and customers.
Abstract: Simple Privacy provides a system for Australian organisations to create privacy policies for the personal information they collect online. The privacy policies it creates are legally compliant and easy to understand. We developed this system because small Australian organisations seemed to find privacy policies too complicated to manage with the resources they have available. This paper describes the framework behind Simple Privacy and discusses the choices that we made during development. These choices balance the requirements of the privacy legislation and the needs of both organisations and customers.
TL;DR: Results indicated that actual body size was positively related to body dissatisfaction, and negatively related to the number of selfies taken, and a positive relationship between body dissatisfaction and selfies taken.
Abstract: This study observed the relations between actual body size, body dissatisfaction, frequency of selfies taken, and number of Instagram selfies posted. Results indicated that actual body size was positively related to body dissatisfaction, and negatively related to the number of selfies taken. Results also revealed a positive relationship between body dissatisfaction and selfies taken. Conversely, no correlations were detected between the frequency of selfies posted to Instagram and either actual body size or body image dissatisfaction.
TL;DR: The analysis shows how the generalized expectation of availability operates on a daily basis and becomes acutely operative in the case of emergencies such as in the immediate wake of the 22 July Oslo bombings.
Abstract: This paper examines how the mobile phone has grown to be an essential item in daily life. It simultaneously represents a gadget that affords us freedom while also tying us to our closest social contacts. The mobile phone provides personal utility via a bewildering number of apps and functions. Through the socially enforced mutual expectation of availability, it ties us to our social sphere while also helping us to create and maintain social cohesion. We are pushed (or coerced) into being in contact via a mobile communication device. This paper draws on qualitative interviews and focus groups from the past two decades to trace the dimensions of this social expectation. The focus in this paper is not on the channel of mediation, i.e. , voice vs. chat vs. texting vs. social networking, etc. The focus is on examining the development of the reciprocal social expectation for telephonic availability. The analysis shows how the generalized expectation of availability operates on a daily basis and becomes acutely operative in the case of emergencies such as in the immediate wake of the 22 July Oslo bombings.
TL;DR: This study first provides a parameterized signature model and then uses regression to show that a relationship exists between the shape of the signature and the rate at which key actors gain followers, and finds a quadratic decline over the life cycle of the movement.
Abstract: The Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street movements demonstrated that networks of individuals who share interests or grievances could quickly form on social media. There is a reciprocal relationship between the growth of these networks and the information that flows through them. This study examines this relationship by using viral information event signatures, which show the changing rate of sharing of a specific message over a period of time. The Occupy movement and the digital interactions of its participants provides a context and rich corpus of data from which to study the relationship between the signatures of information flows and the growth the Occupy network. Using exploratory data analysis and multivariate regression to analyze Occupy related tweets drawn from a corpus of over 64 million tweets, this study first provides a parameterized signature model and then uses regression to show that a relationship exists between the shape of the signature and the rate at which key actors gain followers. This work also finds a quadratic decline, over the life cycle of the movement, in the rate at which the actors gain followers. The contributions of this work include the parameterized signature model, a demonstration of its usefulness, and a new perspective on the growth of the Occupy movement.
TL;DR: Examination of how social media use is associated with perceived social support and adjustment when demographic and social psychological characteristics are controlled for suggests that in studying this topic, both common challenges in getting social support online and special circumstances facing international students should be taken into account.
Abstract: Based on a survey of international students enrolled in a U.S. university, this study examines how social media use is associated with perceived social support and adjustment when demographic and social psychological characteristics are controlled for. Our research shows that level of social media use is positively associated with level of perceived social adjustment but not with level of perceived social support. International students don’t feel comfortable discussing their distress via social media due to complex cultural internetworking present in the online networking sphere. The results of this study indicate that in studying this topic we should take into account both common challenges in getting social support online and special circumstances facing international students. The current study offers scholarly and policy implications for providing relevant social, academic, and professional resources to international students in the United States — a group that has significantly grown in numbers in the past decade.
TL;DR: A curious but growing ‘scholarly divide’ is illuminated between researchers with the technical know-how, funding, or institutional connections to extract big social data and the mass of researchers who merely hearbig social data invoked as the latest, exciting trend in unattainable scholarship.
Abstract: Recent decades have witnessed an increased growth in data generated by information, communication, and technological systems, giving birth to the ‘Big Data’ paradigm. Despite the profusion of raw data being captured by social media platforms, Big Data require specialized skills to parse and analyze — and even with the requisite skills, social media data are not readily available to download. Thus, the Big Data paradigm has not produced a coincidental explosion of research opportunities for the typical scholar. The promising world of unprecedented precision and predictive accuracy that Big Data conjure remains out of reach for most communication and technology researchers, a problem that traditional platforms, namely mass media, did not present. In this paper, we evaluate the system architecture that supports the storage and retrieval of big social data, distinguishing between overt and covert data types, and how both the cost and control of social media data limit opportunities for research. Ultimately, we illuminate a curious but growing ‘scholarly divide’ between researchers with the technical know-how, funding, or institutional connections to extract big social data and the mass of researchers who merely hear big social data invoked as the latest, exciting trend in unattainable scholarship.
TL;DR: It is argued that exchanges of personal information in a human-to-human online informational economy — being friends on social networking sites — can identify an alternate set of concerns: consent, respect, lurking, and creepiness that will provide a better guide to both users and companies about prudence and ethics in information economies than the existing discourse around ‘privacy.
Abstract: Exchange of personal information online is usually conceptualized according to an economic model that treats personal information as data owned by the persons these data are ‘about.’ This leads to a distinct set of concerns having to do with data ownership, data mining, profits, and exploitation, which do not closely correspond to the concerns about privacy that people actually have. A post-phenomenological perspective, oriented by feminist ethics of care, urges us to figure out how privacy concerns arrive in fundamentally human contexts and to speak to that, rather than trying to convince people to care about privacy as it is juridically conceived and articulated. By considering exchanges of personal information in a human-to-human online informational economy — being friends on social networking sites — we can identify an alternate set of concerns: consent, respect, lurking, and creepiness. I argue that these concerns will provide a better guide to both users and companies about prudence and ethics in information economies than the existing discourse around ‘privacy.’
TL;DR: It is illustrated how even mundane practices like watching home repair videos on YouTube can play a role in identity-making and the shaping of modern subjectivities.
Abstract: This paper analyzes interviews with individuals discussing their experiences of searching for and watching DIY videos on YouTube. By exploring the entanglement of individuals’ search practices and the algorithmic underpinnings of the platform, this paper examines how experiences on Web 2.0 platforms can work to narrow, rather than widen, information worlds. Contributing to ongoing conversations in critical algorithm studies, this paper illustrates how even mundane practices like watching home repair videos on YouTube can play a role in identity-making and the shaping of modern subjectivities.
TL;DR: This essay draws on affect and performance studies to conduct an analysis of these YouTube videos — using specific examples from the ASMRtist Olivia Kissper as case studies — in order to explore how media infrastructures produce the incarnation of sexuality through the process of mediated intimacy.
Abstract: This paper explores the intimate performances in “personal attention” ASMR YouTube videos. ASMR — which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response — is a term coined by the community of Internet users who experience a particular tingling sensation in response to certain auditory, visual, or haptic stimuli. The sensation often originates in the scalp and travels down the spine and is reported to be immensely pleasurable, as well as relaxing. “ASMRtists” now flood YouTube with a steady stream of high definition videos designed to trigger this sensation for viewer-listeners, often through role-play scenarios that incorporate genre-specific techniques to simulate a personalized, intimate, and sensual encounter with the ASMRtist. This essay draws on affect and performance studies to conduct an analysis of these YouTube videos — using specific examples from the ASMRtist Olivia Kissper as case studies — in order to explore how media infrastructures produce the incarnation of sexuality through the process of mediated intimacy. Ultimately, it works towards a radical redefinition of sexuality that is more centered on affect than on bodily gestures, and suggests that through this lens the consumption of ASMR videos can be seen as a sexual practice and the configuration of ASMRtist, viewer-listener, and digital technology can be seen as a sexual relation.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined big (social) data consisting of nearly 14 million tweets collected from Twitter over a period of 10 months to analyze public opinion regarding GBV, highlighting the nature of tweeting practices by geographical location and gender.
Abstract: Public institutions are increasingly reliant on data from social media sites to measure public attitude and provide timely public engagement. Such reliance includes the exploration of public views on important social issues such as gender-based violence (GBV). In this study, we examine big (social) data consisting of nearly 14 million tweets collected from Twitter over a period of 10 months to analyze public opinion regarding GBV, highlighting the nature of tweeting practices by geographical location and gender. We demonstrate the utility of computational social science to mine insight from the corpus while accounting for the influence of both transient events and sociocultural factors. We reveal public awareness regarding GBV tolerance and suggest opportunities for intervention and the measurement of intervention effectiveness assisting both governmental and non-governmental organizations in policy development.
TL;DR: The paper analyses four key reasons, practical, social, political, and scientific, why community (wireless) networks should be considered as a viable complementary infrastructure for local communications even when Internet access is available, and addresses the dichotomy between local action and global coordination.
Abstract: This paper frames the role of community (wireless) networks, and other forms of grassroots DIY networking models, as complementary to the Internet communication infrastructures hosting local services for facilitating local interactions, as drivers for a more convivial and sustainable life in the city. Today, only a few Internet-based global corporations mediate our everyday online interactions, without respecting our rights to privacy, freedom of expression and self-determination; they depend for their own sustainability on the exploitation of the immense collected information and design power toward private, commercial and political objectives. But when communication is meant to take place between people in physical proximity, local community networks can provide an alternative infrastructure owned and designed by those concerned. The paper analyses four key reasons, practical, social, political, and scientific, why such DIY networks should be considered as a viable complementary infrastructure for local communications even when Internet access is available. Through analogies with other relevant domains of local action, namely complementary currencies and cooperative housing, I conclude by addressing the dichotomy between local action and global coordination. I advocate for the co-creation of convivial ICT tools for building local communities, or better hybrid spaces of local cooperation, which are larger in size than the small in “small is beautiful” and smaller, but in many cases more diverse, than recent imaginaries of the “multitude”.
TL;DR: This paper seeks to establish a dialogue between two critical methodologies — psychoanalysis and critical political-economy — in order to consider the role of this form of ‘distracted’ smartphone use in everyday life.
Abstract: Have you ever noticed people using their smartphones while waiting for the train? Or people reaching for their phones when suddenly alone in a restaurant? Or people staring intently at their screens before a meeting begins? In this paper I seek to establish a dialogue between two critical methodologies — psychoanalysis and critical political-economy — in order to consider the role of this form of ‘distracted’ smartphone use in everyday life. The aim of this discussion is to broaden our understanding of ‘mundane’ phone use and suggest a way of conceptualising this behaviour at both an individual level and at the level of society.
TL;DR: The paper outlines the methods used and explores how the issue of access is negotiated by the interview subjects and the researcher, and discusses early suggestive themes arising from the data including the obligations felt by these microcelebrities to enact a particular mode of identity and how this is experienced as labour.
Abstract: The term “microcelebrity” describes a broad range of practices, platforms and social relations that includes but is not limited to the increasing significance of public performance in everyday life, the monetisation of social media and the widening scope of what constitutes celebrity culture. While contemporary research on microcelebrity has introduced important ways of discussing the cultural impact of these new forms of visibility, the methodological focus has generally been on discourse analysis and social media analytics. In response, this paper reports on the early stages of a research project which involves interviewing microcelebrities living in Los Angeles about their profile creation on Instagram and YouTube. We argue there are significant issues at play in relation to gaining access to the interview subjects. The paper outlines the methods used and explores how the issue of access is negotiated by the interview subjects and the researcher. Since one of the authors, Jonathan Mavroudis, himself identifies as a microcelebrity with over 25,000 followers on Instagram he is in a unique position to interview these people. This high level of access to a specific cohort of microcelebrities has not been easy to gain for many academic researchers. Jonathan’s microcelebrity status opens up the possibility of conducting autoethnographic research and this is framed as a discussion of relational ethics. Although the primary focus of the paper is on method we also want to discuss early suggestive themes arising from the data including the obligations felt by these microcelebrities to enact a particular mode of identity and how this is experienced as labour. We highlight these initial topics in order to bring context to the discussion of method. Access enables and constrains certain forms of research to occur and in so doing raises questions of trust and friendship. With only 3 interviews conducted to date this is not, of course, representative of all microcelebrities. However it can function as a snapshot of early findings that we hope will inform future research methods and conceptual debates. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future directions of the field more generally.
TL;DR: An in-depth interview with Wikipedia user Ram-Man, an early bot operator on the site and creator or the rambot, the first mass-editing bot is presented.
Abstract: Software robots (“bots”) play a major role across the Internet today, including on Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia. Bots complete over 20 percent of all edits to the project, yet often their work goes unnoticed by other users. Their initial integration onto Wikipedia was not uncontested and highlighted the opposing philosophies of “inclusionists” and “deletionists” who influenced the early years of the project. This paper presents an in-depth interview with Wikipedia user Ram-Man, an early bot operator on the site and creator or the rambot, the first mass-editing bot. Topics discussed include the social and technical climate of early Wikipedia, the creation of bot policies and bureaucracy, and the legacy of rambot and Ram-Man’s work.
TL;DR: This essay argues that lurking poses a threat to the prevailing logic of corporate social platforms, and explores the leading discourses of participation and lurking in order to theorize how this threat functions.
Abstract: Social media is supposed to be all about participation. But most users don’t participate very much. This essay argues that lurking poses a threat to the prevailing logic of corporate social platforms. It explores the leading discourses of participation and lurking in order to theorize how this threat functions, contributes to the political economy of communication in order to account for both user generated content and lurking, and examines strategies that platforms deploy in order to combat lurking and stimulate steady user participation. Finally, it speculates that platforms may be planning for a future where participation figures less centrally, thereby blunting lurking’s threat.
TL;DR: A linguistic analysis shows differences in the way narcissistic and non-narcissistic users communicate on Twitter, with narcissists using more words about anger and negative emotions and others using fewer words about social interaction and positive emotions.
Abstract: A linguistic analysis shows differences in the way narcissistic and non-narcissistic users communicate on Twitter. Because narcissism is marked by attention-seeking, and is related to negativity and perceived victimization, we hypothesized that narcissists would use more words about anger and negative emotions. Conversely, we further hypothesized that they would use fewer words about social interaction and positive emotions. An analysis of over 1,000 users supported these hypotheses.
TL;DR: Results indicate that semi-anonymous opinion leadership may exist on the social news site Reddit, as several users appear frequently as top-voted posters and commenters and Reddit’s reputational value karma may help users and researchers identify opinion leaders.
Abstract: Is it possible to identify opinion leaders in a semi-anonymous online network? To answer this question, this study examines the social news site Reddit to determine whether opinion leadership can be recognized in an online network that, at face value, does not allow users to associate with their off-line personas. Identifiable characteristics, such as commenting, longevity, karma scores, posting frequency, and posting scores were analyzed. Results indicate that semi-anonymous opinion leadership may exist, as several users appear frequently as top-voted posters and commenters. In addition, Reddit’s reputational value karma may help users and researchers identify opinion leaders.