research-article

Events and Controversies: Influences of a Shocking News Event on Information Seeking

Authors:

Paul N. Bennett,

Eric HorvitzAuthors Info & Claims

WWW '15: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web

Pages 614 - 624

https://doi.org/10.1145/2736277.2741099

Published: 18 May 2015 Publication History

Abstract

It has been suggested that online search and retrieval contributes to the intellectual isolation of users within their preexisting ideologies, where people's prior views are strengthened and alternative viewpoints are infrequently encountered. This so-called "filter bubble" phenomenon has been called out as especially detrimental when it comes to dialog among people on controversial, emotionally charged topics, such as the labeling of genetically modified food, the right to bear arms, the death penalty, and online privacy. We seek to identify and study information-seeking behavior and access to alternative versus reinforcing viewpoints following shocking, emotional, and large-scale news events. We choose for a case study to analyze search and browsing on gun control/rights, a strongly polarizing topic for both citizens and leaders of the United States. We study the period of time preceding and following a mass shooting to understand how its occurrence, follow-on discussions, and debate may have been linked to changes in the patterns of searching and browsing. We employ information-theoretic measures to quantify the diversity of Web domains of interest to users and understand the browsing patterns of users. We use these measures to characterize the influence of news events on these web search and browsing patterns.

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Cited By

Engel KHua YZeng TNaaman M(2022)Characterizing Reddit Participation of Users Who Engage in the QAnon Conspiracy TheoriesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129006:CSCW1(1-22)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3512900
Koncar PWalk SHelic D(2021)Analysis and Prediction of Multilingual Controversy on RedditProceedings of the 13th ACM Web Science Conference 202110.1145/3447535.3462481(215-224)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3447535.3462481
Phadke SSamory MMitra T(2021)What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities?Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34329224:CSCW3(1-30)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3432922
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Index Terms

Events and Controversies: Influences of a Shocking News Event on Information Seeking
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Data mining

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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

WWW '15: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on World Wide Web

May 2015

1460 pages

ISBN:9781450334693

General Chairs:
Aldo Gangemi
National Research Council, Italy & Paris 13 University-CNRS, France
,
Stefano Leonardi
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
,
Alessandro Panconesi
Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

Copyright © 2015 Copyright is held by the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).

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IW3C2: International World Wide Web Conference Committee

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SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

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International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee

Republic and Canton of Geneva, Switzerland

Publication History

Published: 18 May 2015

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WWW '15

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IW3C2

WWW '15: 24th International World Wide Web Conference

May 18 - 22, 2015

Florence, Italy

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WWW '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 131 of 929 submissions, 14%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,899 of 8,196 submissions, 23%

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Cited By

Engel KHua YZeng TNaaman M(2022)Characterizing Reddit Participation of Users Who Engage in the QAnon Conspiracy TheoriesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129006:CSCW1(1-22)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3512900
Koncar PWalk SHelic D(2021)Analysis and Prediction of Multilingual Controversy on RedditProceedings of the 13th ACM Web Science Conference 202110.1145/3447535.3462481(215-224)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3447535.3462481
Phadke SSamory MMitra T(2021)What Makes People Join Conspiracy Communities?Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34329224:CSCW3(1-30)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3432922
Gerritse EHasibi Fde Vries ABalog KSetty VLioma CLiu YZhang MBerberich K(2020)Bias in Conversational Search: The Double-Edged Sword of the Personalized Knowledge GraphProceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGIR on International Conference on Theory of Information Retrieval10.1145/3409256.3409834(133-136)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3409256.3409834
Sharevski FJachim PFlorek KVolkamer MWressnegger C(2020)To tweet or not to tweetProceedings of the 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security10.1145/3407023.3407025(1-12)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2020
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Zamani HMitra BChen ELueck GDiaz FBennett PCraswell NDumais SHuang JChang YCheng XKamps JMurdock VWen JLiu Y(2020)Analyzing and Learning from User Interactions for Search ClarificationProceedings of the 43rd International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval10.1145/3397271.3401160(1181-1190)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2020
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Ruiu M(2020)Persistence of Scepticism in Media Reporting on Climate Change: The Case of British NewspapersEnvironmental Communication10.1080/17524032.2020.1775672(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2020
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Lin YChung W(2020)The dynamics of Twitter users’ gun narratives across major mass shooting eventsHumanities and Social Sciences Communications10.1057/s41599-020-00533-87:1Online publication date: 3-Aug-2020
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Papadakos PKonstantakis G(2020)bias goggles: Graph-Based Computation of the Bias of Web Domains Through the Eyes of UsersAdvances in Information Retrieval10.1007/978-3-030-45439-5_52(790-804)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2020
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Kulshrestha JEslami MMessias JZafar MGhosh SGummadi KKarahalios K(2019)Search bias quantificationInformation Retrieval10.1007/s10791-018-9341-222:1-2(188-227)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2019
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