Researching Social News – Is reddit.com a mouthpiece for the ‘Hive Mind’, or a Collective Intelligence approach to Information Overload?

Mills, Richard (2011) Researching Social News – Is reddit.com a mouthpiece for the ‘Hive Mind’, or a Collective Intelligence approach to Information Overload? In: ETHICOMP 2011 Proceedings. Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield.

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Abstract

Distributed moderation and filtering systems are becoming increasingly common on the web. This paper examines reddit.com, a Social News website where users vote to determine which stories will be featured in high-visibility locations. User voting activity and attention are found to be highly concentrated on the website’s front page. The consequences of this are considered, chiefly by studying reddit’s coverage of a major news story. Minority opinions are found to be slightly marginalised but not excluded from high-visibility locations. The paper concludes by discussing some positive and negative effects of the emphasis reddit places on its front page and the collective decisions about which items appear there.

Item Type:
Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings
ID Code:
61646
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
11 Jan 2013 14:38
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
12 Sep 2023 01:40