Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://www.weizenbaum-library.de/handle/id/974
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Item Veiled conspiracism: Particularities and convergence in the styles and functions of conspiracy-related communication across digital platforms(2025) Bühling, Kilian; Zhang, Xixuan; Heft, AnnettDigital communication venues are essential infrastructures for anti-democratic actors to spread harmful content such as conspiracy theories. Capitalizing on platform affordances, they leverage conspiracy theories to mainstream their political views in broader public discourse. We compared the word choice, language style, and communicative function of conspiracy-related content to understand its platform-dependent differences and convergence. Our cases are the conspiracy theories of the New World Order and Great Replacement, which we analyzed on 4chan/pol/, Twitter, and seven alternative US news media longitudinally from 2011 to 2021. The conspiracy-related texts were comparatively analyzed using a multi-method approach of computational and quantitative text analyses. Our results show that conspiracy narrations are increasingly present in all venues. While language differs vastly between platforms, we observed a style convergence between Twitter and 4chan. The results show how more coded language veils the spread of racist and antisemitic content beyond the so-called dark platforms.Item Investigating Innovation Diffusion in Gender-Specific Medicine: Insights from Social Network Analysis(2024) Baum, Katharina; Baumann, Annika; Batzel, KatharinaThe field of healthcare is characterized by constant innovation, with gender-specific medicine emerging as a new subfield that addresses sex and gender disparities in clinical manifestations, outcomes, treatment, and prevention of disease. Despite its importance, the adoption of gender-specific medicine remains understudied, posing potential risks to patient outcomes due to a lack of awareness of the topic. Building on the Innovation Decision Process Theory, this study examines the spread of information about gender-specific medicine in online networks. The study applies social network analysis to a Twitter dataset reflecting online discussions about the topic to gain insights into its adoption by health professionals and patients online. Results show that the network has a community structure with limited information exchange between sub-communities and that mainly medical experts dominate the discussion. The findings suggest that the adoption of gender-specific medicine might be in its early stages, focused on knowledge exchange. Understanding the diffusion of gender-specific medicine among medical professionals and patients may facilitate its adoption and ultimately improve health outcomes.Item Clickbait or conspiracy? How Twitter users address the epistemic uncertainty of a controversial preprint(2023) Bauer, Mareike; Heimstädt, Maximilian; Franzreb, Carlos; Schimmler, SonjaMany scientists share preprints on social media platforms to gain attention from academic peers, policy-makers, and journalists. In this study we shed light on an unintended but highly consequential effect of sharing preprints: Their contribution to conspiracy theories. Although the scientific community might quickly dismiss a preprint as insubstantial and ‘clickbaity’, its uncertain epistemic status nevertheless allows conspiracy theorists to mobilize the text as scientific support for their own narratives. To better understand the epistemic politics of preprints on social media platforms, we studied the case of a biomedical preprint, which was shared widely and discussed controversially on Twitter in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Using a combination of social network analysis and qualitative content analysis, we compared the structures of engagement with the preprint and the discursive practices of scientists and conspiracy theorists. We found that despite substantial engagement, scientists were unable to dampen the conspiracy theorists’ enthusiasm for the preprint. We further found that members from both groups not only tried to reduce the preprint's epistemic uncertainty but sometimes deliberately maintained it. The maintenance of epistemic uncertainty helped conspiracy theorists to reinforce their group's identity as skeptics and allowed scientists to express concerns with the state of their profession. Our study contributes to research on the intricate relations between scientific knowledge and conspiracy theories online, as well as the role of social media platforms for new genres of scholarly communication.Item Twitter Explorer: A Framework for Observing Twitter through Interactive Networks(2021) Pournaki, Armin; Gaisbauer, Felix; Banisch, Sven; Olbrich, EckehardWe present an open-source interface for scientists to explore Twitter data through interactive network visualizations. Combining data collection, transformation and visualization in one easily accessible framework, the twitter explorer connects distant and close reading of Twitter data through the interactive exploration of interaction networks and semantic networks. By lowering the technological barriers of data-driven research, it aims to attract researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds and facilitates new perspectives in the thriving field of computational social science.Item Ideological differences in engagement in public debate on Twitter(2021) Gaisbauer, Felix; Pournaki, Armin; Banisch, Sven; Olbrich, Eckehard; Guidi, BarbaraThis article analyses public debate on Twitter via network representations of retweets and replies. We argue that tweets observable on Twitter have both a direct and mediated effect on the perception of public opinion. Through the interplay of the two networks, it is possible to identify potentially misleading representations of public opinion on the platform. The method is employed to observe public debate about two events: The Saxon state elections and violent riots in the city of Leipzig in 2019. We show that in both cases, (i) different opinion groups exhibit different propensities to get involved in debate, and therefore have unequal impact on public opinion. Users retweeting far-right parties and politicians are significantly more active, hence their positions are disproportionately visible. (ii) Said users act significantly more confrontational in the sense that they reply mostly to users from different groups, while the contrary is not the case.Item Topographies of Local Public Spheres on Social Media: The Scope of Issues and Interactions(2021) Pfetsch, Barbara; Maier, Daniel; Stoltenberg, Daniela; Waldherr, Annie; Kligler-Vilenchik, Neta; de Vries Kedem, MayaFollowing calls for a spatial turn in communication studies, we investigate the reach and topography of Twitter communication in two case studies of Berlin and Jerusalem. We theorize on the spatial dimensions of social media communication and their potential to establish a public sphere that can reach from the local to the global level. Empirically, we investigate the scope of Twitter communication of local users in Berlin and Jerusalem and ask to what degree their interactions and issues indicate a local public sphere or extend beyond the local level. We use a combination of topic modeling and a novel localization index to explore the spatial dimensions of the two Twitterspheres. Our data point to a considerable share of locally rooted conversations, but the majority of communication reaches beyond the local. At the intersection of interactions and issues, we uncover complex, semilocal configurations of public communication.Item Visibility Through Information Sharing: The Role of Tweet Authors and Communication Styles in Retweeting Political Information on Twitter(2019) Engelmann, Ines; Kloss, Andrea; Neuberger, Christoph; Brockmann, TobiasIf a speaker’s political message on Twitter is retweeted, both the speaker and the message become visible to a wider network of Twitter users, making the tweet actor more prominent on the Twittersphere or beyond. This study analyzes the effects of different types of tweet authors (such as politicians, journalists, economic actors, members of nonprofit interest groups, and citizens) and the communication styles of political information (affect and rationality) on the number of retweets. The potential effects of these factors are hypothesized based on the heuristic-systematic model but are also discussed in the normative context of public sphere theories. A content analysis of 4,403 tweets shows that the author types, communication styles, and their interactions affect the number of retweets. The theoretical and normative implications of these results are discussed.Item Who Are They and Where? Insights Into the Social and Spatial Dimensions of Imagined Audiences From a Mobile Diary Study of Twitter Users(2022) Stoltenberg, Daniela; Pfetsch, Barbara; Keinert, Alexa; Waldherr, AnnieSocial media users hardly know who is reading their posts, but they form ideas about their readership. Researchers have coined the term imagined audience for the social groups that actors imagine seeing their public communication. However, social groups are not the only aspect that requires imagination: In the potentially borderless online environment, the geographical scope and locations of one’s audience are also unknown. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that imagined audiences vary between people and situations, but what explains these variations is unclear. In this article, we address these two gaps—the geographical scope and predictors of imagined audiences—using data from a mobile experience sampling method study of 105 active Twitter users from Berlin, Germany. Our results show that respondents mostly think of a geographically broad audience, which is spread out across the country or even globally. The imagined geographical scope and social groups depend on both the communicator and the usage situation. While the audience’s social composition especially depends on tweet content and respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics, the geographical scope is best explained by respondents’ biography and personal mobility, including their experience of living in other countries and local residential duration.Item Tweeting in the Time of Coronavirus: How Social Media Use and Academic Research Evolve during Times of Global Uncertainty(2020) Kligler-Vilenchik, Neta; Stoltenberg, Daniela; de Vries Kedem, Maya; Gur-Ze’ev, Hadas; Waldherr, Annie; Pfetsch, BarbaraOur international research team was in the midst of a comparative study about the day-to-day experience of Twitter users in Berlin and Jerusalem through a series of daily short surveys, when our Jerusalem data were becoming increasingly “compromised” by the growing public concern, and tightening government measures, around the spread of the Coronavirus in Israel. During the two waves of our 10-day survey of salient Twitter users in Jerusalem (March 9–March 19, N = 34; March 23–April 2, N = 25), Israel shifted from 50 confirmed Coronavirus cases to over 6,800 and from relative routine to almost full stay-at-home orders. This essay presents two intersecting narratives. First, we consider the methodological challenges of adapting ongoing academic survey studies to changing conditions. We then offer a mixed-methods analysis of the experiences of our Twitter users and how they saw the Coronavirus crisis shaping their use of Twitter. The essay thus offers a unique methodological and empirical vantage point on how social media use—and academic research—evolve during times of global uncertainty.Item Wer ist #MeToo? Eine netzwerkanalytische Untersuchung (anti-)feministischen Protests auf Twitter(2020) Martini, FranziskaFeministischer Aktivismus auf digitalen Plattformen geht einher mit Chancen ebenso wie mit neuen Gefahren – vom Vernetzungspotenzial und der Organisation feministischer Öffentlich‐ keiten auf der einen Seite, zu neuen Formen des Hasses gegen Aktivist*innen und des Aus‐ schlusses bestimmter Personengruppen auf der anderen Seite. Mithilfe von Netzwerkund Inhaltsanalysen untersucht diese Studie den deutschsprachigen #MeToo-Protest auf Twitter und geht der Frage nach, welche Akteure hier einflussreich und sichtbar waren und Twitter als Plattform für sich nutzen konnten. Es wird gezeigt, dass neben privaten Nutzer*innen vor allem traditionelle Massenmedien auf Twitter eine zentrale Rolle spielen. Gleichzeitig lässt sich innerhalb des #MeToo-Protests ein dichtes Netzwerk antifeministischer und rassistischer Stimmen finden, die strategisch für eigene Anliegen mobilisieren wollen. Daraus kann ge‐ schlossen werden, dass sich auch auf Twitter hierarchische Strukturen und qualitative Un‐ terschiede der Vernetzung herausbilden, welche Barrieren für die öffentliche Artikulation feministischer Anliegen darstellen.