Pathways to Fragmentation:User Flows and Web Distribution Infrastructures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how user clickstream data reveals patterns of website browsing sequences, uncovering online collectives and the influence of curatorial infrastructures on audience fragmentation.

Contribution

It constructs a large-scale directed network of user flows across 1761 websites, revealing hidden online collectives and the role of curatorial infrastructures in audience segmentation.

Findings

Identification of website constellations frequently browsed together

Revealing hidden online collectives and user groups

Insights into how curatorial infrastructures influence fragmentation

Abstract

This study analyzes how web audiences flow across online digital features. We construct a directed network of user flows based on sequential user clickstreams for all popular websites (n=1761), using traffic data obtained from a panel of a million web users in the United States. We analyze these data to identify constellations of websites that are frequently browsed together in temporal sequences, both by similar user groups in different browsing sessions as well as by disparate users. Our analyses thus render visible previously hidden online collectives and generate insight into the varied roles that curatorial infrastructures may play in shaping audience fragmentation on the web.