2004
Volume 3, Issue 1
  • E-ISSN: 2665-9085

Abstract

Abstract

The data-driven study of cultural information diffusion in online (social) media is currently an active area of research. The availability of data from the web thereby generates new opportunities to examine how words propagate through online media and communities, as well as how these diffusion patterns are intertwined with the materiality and culture of social media platforms. In support of such efforts, this paper introduces an online tool for tracking the consecutive occurrences of words across subreddits on Reddit between 2005 and 2017. By processing the full Pushshift.io Reddit comment archive for this period (Baumgartner et al., 2020), we are able to track the first occurrences of 76 million words, allowing us to visualize which subreddits subsequently adopt any of those words over time. We illustrate this approach by addressing the spread of terms referring to famous internet controversies, and the percolation of alt-right terminology. By making our instrument and the processed data publically available, we aim to facilitate a range of exploratory analyses in computational social science, the digital humanities, and related fields.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2021.1.005.WILL
2021-03-01
2024-11-11
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/26659085/3/1/05_CCR2021.1_WILL.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2021.1.005.WILL&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Adamic, L., Lento, T., & Ng, P.(2014). The evolution of memes on facebook. Facebook Data Science. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-evolution-of-memes-on-facebook/10151988334203859/
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Amaya, A., Bach, R., Keusch, F., & Kreuter, F.(2019). New data sources in social science research. Things to know before working with reddit data. Social science computer review. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439319893305
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Baumgartner, J., Zannettou, S., Keegan, B., Squire, M., & Blackburn, J.(2020). The Pushshift reddit dataset. arXiv:2001.08435
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bennet, C., Li, M., Ma, B.(2003). Chain letters & evolutionary histories. Scientific American, 288(6), 76–81.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Brewer, J.(2016). A forty year update on meme theory. Retrieved from https://evolution-institute.org/blog/a-forty-year-update-on-meme-theory/
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Chielens, K.(2003). The viral aspects of language. A quantitative research of memetic selection criteria. [Unpublished master’s thesis], Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Retrieved from memetics.chielens.net/master/thesis.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Dawkins, R.(2016). The selfish gene. 40th anniversary edition. Oxford landmark science. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Fazal, M.(2018). Richard Dawkins told us what he thinks about memes. Vice. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d35ana/richard-dawkins-told-us-what-he-thinks-about-memes
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Gleick, J.(2011). The information. A history, a theory, a flood.New York, United States: Vintage Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Goodenough, O.R. & Dawkins, R.(2002). The ‘St Jude’ mind virus. Nature371, 23–24.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Hagen, S., Tuters, M., & Wilson, J.(2020). Reactionary wokeness. How redpilling became a thing on Reddit. Retrieved from oilab.eu/reactionary-wokeness-how-redpilling-became-a-thing-on-reddit/.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. HeylighenF. & ChielensK.(2009). Evolution of culture, memetics. In MeyersR. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science (pp. 3205-3220). New York, United States: Springer.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Knowyourmeme.com. (2020). Kek. Retrieved from https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kek.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Lagorio-Chafkin, C.(2018). We are the nerds. The birth and tumultuous life of Reddit, the internet’s culture laboratory. New York and Boston, United States: Hachette Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Martin, T.(2016). Interactive map of reddit and subreddit similarity calculator. Retrieved from https://www.shorttails.io/interactive-map-of-reddit-and-subreddit-similarity-calculator/
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Martin, T.(2017). Dissecting Trump’s most rabid online following. Retrieved from https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-rabid-online-following/
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Ohanian, A.(2008). blog.reddit – what’s new on reddit: make your own reddit. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20140521025313/https://redditblog.com/2008/03/make-your-own-reddit.html.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Olson, R.(2015). The reddit ngram viewer. Retrieved from www.randalolson.com/wp-content/uploads/The_Reddit_Ngram_Viewer.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  19. [Google Scholar]
  20. Penelope (2020). The Penelope platform. Tools and techniques for computational social science. Retrieved from https://penelope.vub.be/
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Pushshift.io. (2020). Directory contents (Reddit comment data). Retrieved from https://files.pushshift.io/reddit/comments/r/NoBullshitGaming. (2020). Game talk and reviews from regular people who like games. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/NoBullshitGaming/
    [Google Scholar]
  22. r/NoBullshitGaming (2020). Game talk and reviews from regular people who like games. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/NoBullshitGaming/
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Redditinc.com. (2020). Reddit by the numbers. Retrieved from https://www.redditinc.com/press
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Redditor’s Club. (2016). Redditor’s club. Retrieved from https://github.com/yuguang/reddit-comments
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Rieder, B., Matamoros-Fernández, A., Coromina, Ò.(2018). From ranking algorithms to ‘ranking cultures’. Investigating the modulation of visibility in YouTube search results. Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. doi:10.1177/1354856517736982.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Rogers, R.(2013). Digital methods. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT press.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Rogers, R.(2019). Doing digital methods. London, United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Limited.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Sampson, T.(2011). Virality. Contagion Theory in the Age of Networks. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Shifman, L.(2013). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, United States and London, England: The MIT Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Squirrell, T.(2017). Linguistic data analysis of 3 billion reddit comments shows the alt-right is getting stronger. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1056319/what-is-the-alt-right-a-linguistic-data-analysis-of-3-billion-reddit-comments-shows-a-disparate-group-that-is-quickly-uniting/
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Tuters, M., & Hagen, S.(2019). (((They))) rule: Memetic antagonism and nebulous othering on 4chan. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444819888746
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Tuters, M., Jokubauskaitė, E., & Bach, D.(2018). Post-Truth Protest: How 4chan Cooked Up the Pizzagate Bullshit. M/C Journal, 21(3).
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Van Soest, J. (2019). Language innovation tracker.Detecting language innovation in online discussion fora (Unpublished master’s thesis),Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Willaert, T., Van Eecke, P., Beuls, K., Steels, L. (2020). Building social media observatories for monitoring online opinion dynamics.Social Media and Society. April 2020,doi:10.1177/2056305119898778
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2021.1.005.WILL
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2021.1.005.WILL
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): digital methods; Language propagation; media; reddit
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error