ABSTRACT
Social media platforms provide several social interactional features. Due to the large scale reach of social media, these interactional features help enable various types of political discourse. Constructive and diversified discourse is important for sustaining healthy communities and reducing the impact of echo chambers. In this paper, we empirically examine the role of a newly introduced Twitter feature, 'quote retweets' (or 'quote RTs') in political discourse, specifically whether it has led to improved, civil, and balanced exchange. Quote RTs allow users to quote the tweet they retweet, while adding a short comment. Our analysis using content, network and crowd labeled data indicates that the feature has increased political discourse and its diffusion, compared to existing features. We discuss the implications of our findings in understanding and reducing online polarization.
- N. Azman, D. E. Millard, and M. J. Weal. Dark retweets: investigating non-conventional retweeting patterns. Springer, 2012.Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Blackburn and H. Kwak. Stfu noob!: predicting crowdsourced decisions on toxic behavior in online games. In WWW, pages 877--888, 2014. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Boyd, S. Golder, and G. Lotan. Tweet, tweet, retweet: Conversational aspects of retweeting on twitter. In HICSS, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Cheng, C. Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, and J. Leskovec. Antisocial behavior in online discussion communities. ICWSM, 2015.Google Scholar
- R. K. Garrett. Echo chambers online?: Politically motivated selective exposure among internet news users1. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(2):265--285, 2009.Google ScholarCross Ref
- E. Gilbert, T. Bergstrom, and K. Karahalios. Blogs are echo chambers: Blogs are echo chambers. In HICSS, pages 1--10, 2009. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Halpern and J. Gibbs. Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? exploring the affordances of facebook and youtube for political expression. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3):1159--1168, 2013. Google ScholarDigital Library
- F. Kooti, H. Yang, M. Cha, P. K. Gummadi, and W. A. Mason. The emergence of conventions in online social networks. In ICWSM, 2012.Google Scholar
- M. J. Kushin and K. Kitchener. Getting political on social network sites: Exploring online political discourse on facebook. First Monday, 14(11), 2009.Google Scholar
- J. R. Landis and G. G. Koch. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. biometrics, pages 159--174, 1977.Google Scholar
- Y. Liu, C. Kliman-Silver, and A. Mislove. The tweets they are a-changin': Evolution of twitter users and behavior. In ICWSM, 2014.Google Scholar
- Z. Liu and I. Weber. Is twitter a public sphere for online conflicts? a cross-ideological and cross-hierarchical look. In SocInfo, 2014.Google ScholarCross Ref
- M. McLuhan. Understanding Media: the Extension of Man. Routledge, 1964.Google Scholar
- P. Metaxas, E. Mustafaraj, K. Wong, L. Zeng, M. O'Keefe, and S. Finn. What do retweets indicate? results from user survey and meta-review of research. In ICWSM, 2015.Google Scholar
- E. Mustafaraj and P. T. Metaxas. What edited retweets reveal about online political discourse. In Analyzing Microtext, 2011. Google ScholarDigital Library
- B. Reader. Free press vs. free speech? the rhetoric of 'civility' in regard to anonymous online comments. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(3):495--513, 2012.Google ScholarCross Ref
- S. P. Robertson, R. K. Vatrapu, and R. Medina. Off the wall political discourse: Facebook use in the 2008 us presidential election. Information Polity, 15(1--2):11--31, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- I. Rowe. Civility 2.0: a comparative analysis of incivility in online political discussion. Information, Communication & Society, 18(2):121--138, 2015.Google Scholar
- P. Shachaf and N. Hara. Beyond vandalism: Wikipedia trolls. Journal of Information Science, 36(3):357--370, 2010. Google ScholarDigital Library
- I. Weber, V. R. K. Garimella, and A. Batayneh. Secular vs. islamist polarization in egypt on twitter. In ASONAM, 2013. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Quote RTs on Twitter: usage of the new feature for political discourse
Recommendations
To Reply or to Quote: Comparing Conversational Framing Strategies on Twitter
Social media platform affordances allow users to interact with content and with each other in diverse ways. For example, on Twitter,1 users can like, reply, retweet, or quote another tweet. Though it’s clear that these different features allow various ...
Information resonance on Twitter: watching Iran
SOMA '10: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Social Media AnalyticsTwitter has undoubtedly caught the attention of both the general public, and academia as a microblogging service worthy of study and attention. Twitter has several features that sets it apart from other social media/networking sites, including its 140 ...
A sentiment analysis of audiences on twitter: who is the positive or negative audience of popular twitterers?
ICHIT'11: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Convergence and hybrid information technologyMicroblogging is a new informal communication medium of blogging that differs from a traditional blog in which content is much shorter. Microbloggers post about topics that describe their current status. Twitter is a popular microblogging service and ...
Comments