Emotional Dynamics in the Age of Misinformation

TL;DR

This study explores how emotional responses differ in online discussions about science and conspiracy news, revealing that conspiracy comments are more negative and longer discussions tend to become more negative overall.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the emotional dynamics and negativity patterns in polarized online communities discussing science and conspiracy topics.

Findings

Conspiracy posts attract more negative comments than science posts.

Higher user engagement correlates with increased negativity in comments.

Longer discussions tend to become more negative in sentiment.

Abstract

According to the World Economic Forum, the diffusion of unsubstantiated rumors on online social media is one of the main threats for our society. The disintermediated paradigm of content production and consumption on online social media might foster the formation of homophile communities (echo-chambers) around specific worldviews. Such a scenario has been shown to be a vivid environment for the diffusion of false claims, in particular with respect to conspiracy theories. Not rarely, viral phenomena trigger naive (and funny) social responses -- e.g., the recent case of Jade Helm 15 where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of the civil war in the US. In this work, we address the emotional dynamics of collective debates around distinct kind of news -- i.e., science and conspiracy news -- and inside and across their respective polarized communities (science and conspiracy news). Our findings show that comments on conspiracy posts tend to be more negative than on science posts. However, the more the engagement of users, the more they tend to negative commenting (both on science and conspiracy). Finally, zooming in at the interaction among polarized communities, we find a general negative pattern. As the number of comments increases -- i.e., the discussion becomes longer -- the sentiment of the post is more and more negative.