On Online Attention Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding of how collective attention shifts and dissipates in online media, emphasizing the need for empirical, mathematical, and system-theoretic studies to better understand these dynamics.

Contribution

It highlights key questions about online attention dynamics and advocates for comprehensive empirical and computational research in this area.

Findings

Identifies gaps in empirical understanding of online attention

Proposes a multidisciplinary approach including modeling and simulation

Calls for rigorous analysis of media infrastructure effects

Abstract

This work aims at emphasizing a number of questions that, although crucial since the early days of media studies, have not yet been the object of the empirical and computational study that they deserve: How does collective attention concentrate and dissipate in modern communication systems? How do subjects and sources rise and fall in public debates? How are these dynamics shaped by media infrastructures? In the perspective of addressing these questions, this chapter provides a review of the literature on the dynamics of online content dissemination: our goal is to prepare the ground for the necessary study, which should comprise empirical investigation, mathematical modeling, numerical simulation, and rigorous system-theoretic analysis.