Year: 2014
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The interlink between information and belief formation and \nrevision is a fundamental aspect of social dynamics. The growth of knowledge \nfostered by a hyper-connected world together with the unprecedented \nacceleration of scientific progress has exposed individuals, governments \nand countries to an increasing level of complexity to explain \nreality and its phenomena. Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric about the so \ncalled collective intelligence, conspiracy theories and other unsubstantiated \nclaims find on the Web a natural medium for their diffusion. Cases \nin which these kinds of false information are used in political debates \nare far from unimaginable. In this work, we study the behavior of users \nsupporting different (and opposite) worldviews – i.e. scientific and conspiracist \nthinking – that commented the posts of the Facebook page \nof a large italian political party that advocates direct democracy and \ne-Participation. We find that users supporting different narratives consume \npolitical information in a similar way. Moreover, by analyzing the \ncomposition of users active on the page in terms of commenting activity, \nwe notice that almost one fifth of them is represented by polarized consumers \nof conspiracy stories, and those are able to generate almost one \nthird of total comments to the posts of the page
Authors: Bessi, Alessandro, Coletto, Mauro, Davidescu, George Alexandru, Scala, Antonio, Quattrociocchi, Walter
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W6983451747