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Is social media making news generation & consumption better?

Is social media making news generation & consumption better?. Krishna P. Gummadi Networked Systems Research Group MPI-SWS, Germany. Need to understand social media-based news dissemination better. Three questions: Who is spreading news to whom? Why are users spreading news?

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Is social media making news generation & consumption better?

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  1. Is social media making news generation & consumption better? Krishna P. Gummadi Networked Systems Research Group MPI-SWS, Germany

  2. Need to understand social media-based news dissemination better • Three questions: • Who is spreading news to whom? • Why are users spreading news? • What incentives drive their behavior? • How is users’ exposure to news changing?

  3. Broad categories of users in Twitter • Elites: Media organizations, celebrities, politicians, journalists • Have hundreds of thousands of followers • Very few (< 0.1% of users) • Enthusiasts:Wanna-be-elites, bloggers, activists, domain experts • Have several hundred to thousands of followers • Small percentage (<1-2% of users) • Grassroots: Ordinary users • Less than a couple of hundred followers • Large percentage (98-99% of users)

  4. 1. Who is spreading news to whom? • Studied coverage of protests in Iran & Maldova • Elites: necessary and sufficient to reach a majority of Twitter users • Enthusiasts: extend the reach of elites considerably • Grassroots: surprisingly, don’t help much!

  5. 2. Why are users spreading news? • Elites: Their incentives are well understood • Grassroots: Share & discuss news with friends • Enthusiasts: What are their incentives? • Altruistic desire to do social good? • Selfish desire to become more influential?

  6. Incentives for enthusiasts • In a recent study of spammers in Twitter, we found that most links to spammers come from enthusiasts! • Many are social marketers • Tag cloud created from their bios: • They often collude to increase their “influence” • How do their goals affect what news they tweet?

  7. 3. How is users’ exposure to news changing? • Are they being exposed to • only news they like? • more diverse opinions? • more niche stories in the long-tail? • more local news than global news? Or vice-versa? • more opinions than facts? • How is the exposure affecting their understanding of the events?

  8. Summary • Is social media making news generation and consumption better? • First, we need to better understand how social media-based news generation and consumption works • Many basic questions still remain unanswered • Lots of intuitive beliefs supported by anecdotal evidence • Excellent opportunity for this community to verify existing theories and discover new ones using real data!

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