How Elites Invigorate Emotionality and Extremity in Digital Networks

IF 3 2区社会学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Social Science Computer Review Pub Date : 2024-04-16 DOI:10.1177/08944393241247427

Anson Au

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The October 2017 Las Vegas shooting was the deadliest shooting in modern American history, but little scholarship has examined the public uproar in its wake, particularly in digital networks. Drawing on a corpus of 100,000 public Tweets and 1,119,638 unique words written in reaction to the shooting, this article addresses this lacuna by investigating the topics of reactions and their linkages with elites. This article theorizes that elites invigorate the emotionality of public reactions and broker the connection between discursive and affective content in digital networks. The results show that Tweets engaging with elites expressed statistically greater emotionality and extremity in emotional valences compared to Tweets written independent of elites. Additionally, this article identifies variations in the discursive themes invoked based on the types of elites. Mentions of non-political elites drew on themes about expressive support and depictions of the immediate environment with little emotional extremity. By contrast, mentions of political elites drew on themes about broader policy debates on gun ownership laws and adherent policy reforms. Unlike with non-political elites, mentions of political elites also exhibited greater extremity in negative emotional valences, reflective of increasing polarization in American politics.

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精英如何在数字网络中激发情感和极端情绪

2017 年 10 月发生的拉斯维加斯枪击案是美国现代史上伤亡最惨重的枪击案，但很少有学者研究过枪击案发生后的公众骚动，尤其是数字网络中的骚动。本文利用 100,000 条公共推文和 1,119,638 个独特的单词组成的语料库，通过研究反应的主题及其与精英的联系，弥补了这一空白。本文提出的理论认为，精英会激发公众反应的情感性，并在数字网络中促成话语内容与情感内容之间的联系。研究结果表明，与独立于精英的推文相比，与精英有联系的推文在统计意义上表达了更强的情感性和情感价值的极端性。此外，本文还根据精英的类型确定了话语主题的差异。提到非政治精英时，所引用的主题是表达支持和对直接环境的描绘，几乎没有情绪极端化。与此相反，提及政治精英时，所涉及的主题则是关于枪支所有权法律和政策改革的更广泛的政策辩论。与非政治精英不同，对政治精英的提及也表现出更极端的负面情绪价值，反映出美国政治日益两极化。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Science Computer Review 社会科学-计算机：跨学科应用

CiteScore

9.00

自引率

4.90%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Unique Scope Social Science Computer Review is an interdisciplinary journal covering social science instructional and research applications of computing, as well as societal impacts of informational technology. Topics included: artificial intelligence, business, computational social science theory, computer-assisted survey research, computer-based qualitative analysis, computer simulation, economic modeling, electronic modeling, electronic publishing, geographic information systems, instrumentation and research tools, public administration, social impacts of computing and telecommunications, software evaluation, world-wide web resources for social scientists. Interdisciplinary Nature Because the Uses and impacts of computing are interdisciplinary, so is Social Science Computer Review. The journal is of direct relevance to scholars and scientists in a wide variety of disciplines. In its pages you''ll find work in the following areas: sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, psychology, computer literacy, computer applications, and methodology.