DOCSLIB.ORG

The Community Industry: an Analysis of Reddit and /R/Socialism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Community Industry: an Analysis of Reddit and /R/Socialism THE COMMUNITY INDUSTRY: AN ANALYSIS OF REDDIT AND /R/SOCIALISM Richard Babb A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2021 Committee: Radhika Gajjala, Advisor Samuel T McAbee, Graduate Faculty Representative Lara Lengel Yanqin Lu © 2021 Richard Babb All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Radhika Gajjala, Advisor Social media is an increasingly important space for community formation and interactions. Coinciding with the rise of social media has been an increasing interest in leftist ideologies once outside the mainstream. This analysis seeks to understand the social media site Reddit.com’s enabling and constraining features on the community /r/socialism. Using the communicative theory of identity and Marxist media theory not only to look at Reddit and /r/socialism’s relationship, but five key functions of a media: capital-economic, media sales and media market function, commodity circulation, domination, and the audience. Employing a mixed-methods approach enabled various data to be analyzed and relationally understood. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine user’s salient topics and their uses for the community. Survey methods were deployed to the community to gather demographic data on the /r/socialism community and user opinions on the group’s relationship with Reddit. Finally, secondary documents were analyzed to provide greater context to the other findings. Findings from the content analysis of salient subjects showed a preference for contemporary capitalist critique, socialist quotations, and class issues. However, topics impacting women and other minority groups were light to nonexistent. Analysis of platform uses found the top three uses to be a general discussion, information-seeking, and information-giving. The user survey was plagued by low participation and participants who were under the age of consent. As such, data from a community-administered survey filled in the gaps. Secondary document analysis shed light on many features of Reddit, particularly how the social media’s systems are designed to elicit data and authenticity. Reddit’s primary focus was on creating a space suitable iv for advertising with minimum corporate input. To attract users, Reddit sells the premise of community and interactions. For businesses, Reddit serves as an ad platform that can also help brands appear ‘authentic’ to their customers. As part of their role as an ad platform, the company has implemented multiple system designs and practices which encourage constant consumption. These features also propagate capitalist, corporatist, and Americanist ideologies dominant in society. Community members were diverse in socialist thought but demographically consisted mainly of young straight males with less than five years of interest in socialism. Overall, the platform’s relationship with the community was complex, with multiple feedback systems designed to deemphasize individual users and emphasize the group to encourage data exchanges and support advertising. v Dedicated to Family and Friends vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Radhika Gajjala for her guidance throughout the dissertation and program. Without her calming influence and depth of knowledge, this project would have taken shape. I would also like to recognize my committee members: Dr. Yanquin Lu, Dr. Samuel T McAbee, Dr. Lara Lengel, for their thoughtful feedback and assistance. I would also like to thank my family for their support. Without my father’s support, my entire academic journey would not have started. Also, I want to give my brother Jacob a special mention for always listening to my research-induced rants. Finally, I would like to recognize my friends Harry and Quenton for their constant assistance in times of need and Quenton’s editing skills. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1: BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Identity ................................................................................................................................ 2 Marxism .............................................................................................................................. 9 Social Media ..................................................................................................................... 17 Users ................................................................................................................................. 20 Location ............................................................................................................................ 24 CHAPTER 2: METHOD .............................................................................................................. 28 Research Questions ........................................................................................................... 28 Typology ........................................................................................................................... 29 Qualitative Content Analysis ............................................................................................ 32 Survey ............................................................................................................................... 34 Secondary Document Analysis ......................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS ............................................................................................................ 38 Analysis - Discussion Subjects ......................................................................................... 38 Capitalism .............................................................................................................. 38 Socialism ................................................................................................................ 39 Class ....................................................................................................................... 40 Law enforcement ................................................................................................... 41 The Right ............................................................................................................... 41 Government ........................................................................................................... 42 Imperialism ............................................................................................................ 43 viii Int. news and solidarity .......................................................................................... 43 The Left ................................................................................................................. 43 Immigration ........................................................................................................... 44 Media ..................................................................................................................... 45 Insurance/healthcare .............................................................................................. 45 Israel-Palestine ....................................................................................................... 45 Reddit ..................................................................................................................... 46 Economic ............................................................................................................... 46 Military .................................................................................................................. 46 Lgbtq+ .................................................................................................................... 46 Landlords ............................................................................................................... 47 No theme codes ...................................................................................................... 47 Analysis - Comments ........................................................................................................ 47 General discussion ................................................................................................. 47 Info-Giving ............................................................................................................ 48 Info-Seeking .......................................................................................................... 49 Criticism ................................................................................................................ 50 Resource giving ..................................................................................................... 50 Comradery ............................................................................................................. 51 Mod/Rule ............................................................................................................... 51 Survey ............................................................................................................................... 51 Document Analysis ........................................................................................................... 55 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title A Web of Extended Metaphors in the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto of Aaron Swartz Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6w76f8x7 Author Swift, Kathy Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara A Web of Extended Metaphors in the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto of Aaron Swartz A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Kathleen Anne Swift Committee in charge: Professor Richard Duran, Chair Professor Diana Arya Professor William Robinson September 2017 The dissertation of Kathleen Anne Swift is approved. ................................................................................................................................ Diana Arya ................................................................................................................................ William Robinson ................................................................................................................................ Richard Duran, Committee Chair June 2017 A Web of Extended Metaphors in the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto of Aaron Swartz Copyright © 2017 by Kathleen Anne Swift iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee for their advice and patience as I worked on gathering and analyzing the copious amounts of research necessary to
    [Show full text]
  • People Are Either Too Fake Or Too Real'': Opportunities And
    Behavior in Online Communities CHI 2017, May 6–11, 2017, Denver, CO, USA “People Are Either Too Fake or Too Real”: Opportunities and Challenges in Tie-Based Anonymity Xiao Ma Nazanin Andalibi Louise Barkhuus Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech College of Computing and The IT University of New York, NY, USA Informatics, Drexel University Copenhagen [email protected] Philadelphia, PA, USA Copenhagen, Denmark [email protected] [email protected] Mor Naaman Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech New York, NY, USA [email protected] ABSTRACT affected social interactions and dynamics in offline and on- In recent years, several mobile applications allowed individ- line environments [11, 27]. Anonymity allows people to feel uals to anonymously share information with friends and con- less constrained by the expectations of their everyday iden- tacts, without any persistent identity marker. The functions of tities [3, 25], which in turn allows more candid and honest these “tie-based” anonymity services may be notably differ- self-expressions [1, 43]. Anonymity also leads users to dis- ent than other social media services. We use semi-structured close more information [52], which may result in positive interviews to qualitatively examine motivations, practices and emotional outcomes for the person disclosing [45]. On the perceptions in two tie-based anonymity apps: Secret (now de- other hand, the lack of attribution and responsibility in anony- funct, in the US) and Mimi (in China). Among the findings, mous environments can encourage malicious behaviors such we show that: (1) while users are more comfortable in self- as trolling [33] and cyberbullying [5, 6, 34]. It is no wonder disclosure, they still have specific practices and strategies to that society in general, and HCI researchers in particular, have avoid or allow identification; (2) attempts for de-identification been fascinated with the topic of anonymity.
    [Show full text]
  • Trolls Under the Bridge: Anonymous Online Comments and Gatekeeping in the Digital Realm
    TROLLS UNDER THE BRIDGE: ANONYMOUS ONLINE COMMENTS AND GATEKEEPING IN THE DIGITAL REALM _______________________________________ A thesis presented to the faculty of the graduate school at the University of Missouri-Columbia ___________________________________________________________ in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, master of arts ______________________________________________ by NOELLE M. STEELE Ryan J. Thomas, Thesis Supervisor DECEMBER 2013 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the graduate school, have examined the thesis entitled TROLLS UNDER THE BRIDGE: ANONYMOUS ONLINE COMMENTS AND GATEKEEPING IN THE DIGITAL REALM presented by Noelle M. Steele, a candidate for the degree of master of arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. __________________________________________ Dr. Ryan J. Thomas __________________________________________ Dr. Tim Vos ___________________________________________ Professor Joy Mayer ____________________________________________ Dr. Christina Wells ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A special thank you to Sarah Smith-Frigerio for her unending encouragement, faithful guidance and witty responses that kept matters light when they might otherwise have been stressful. Many a graduate student would have lost their way without her prompt attention to every issue that cropped up and tireless dedication to resolving the problem. Endless thanks to my thesis chair, Dr. Ryan J. Thomas, for his attention to detail and refusal to allow me to settle for anything less than the most polished piece of work I could possibly produce. I owe the completion of this research to his persistence and enthusiasm for the project. And to the remainder of my thesis committee – Drs. Tim Vos and Christina Wells and Professor Joy Mayer – thank you for believing in my rough research idea and challenging me to refine it from the very beginning.
    [Show full text]
  • Defamation Law in the Age of the Internet: Young People’S Perspectives
    DEFAMATION LAW IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET: YOUNG PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVES Defamation Law in the Internet Age June 2017 Commissioned by the Law Commission of Ontario Prepared by Jane Bailey Valerie Steeves The LCO commissioned this paper to provide background research for its Defamation Law in the Internet Age project. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the LCO. DEFAMATION LAW IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET: YOUNG PEOPLE’S PERSPECTIVES Prepared by: Jane Bailey1 and Valerie Steeves2 Prepared for: Law Commission of Ontario Final Report 15 June 2017 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................................................ 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................................... 4 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................. 10 I. THE MEANING AND VALUE OF REPUTATION .............................................................................. 13 A. Understanding Online Reputation ..................................................................................................... 13 B. Creating an Online Reputation ............................................................................................................ 18 C. Avoiding Reputational Harm...............................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • LEAF:A Privacy-Conscious Social Network-Based Intervention Tool for IPV Survivors
    LEAF:A Privacy-conscious Social Network-based Intervention Tool for IPV Survivors Balaji Palanisamy Sheldon Sensenig James Joshi Rose Constantinoy School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh ySchool of Nursing, University of Pittsburgh fbpalan, sms233, jjoshi, [email protected] Abstract—Destructive relationship behavior directed from one acronym stands for lending encouragement, affirming futures. party to another in domestic relationships, both physical and These embody the vision for a system to provide support to emotional, is a common problem. When the behavior occurs those in difficult situations. in intimate relationships this is called intimate partner violence (IPV). There are many resources available to survivors of IPV LEAF is primarily focused on providing a secure privacy- in getting out of abusive situations, but the information is not conscious social-network based support system for survivors readily available and is not always easy to find. Furthermore, of intimate partner violence (IPV). We note that destructive once the survivor has escaped from the abusive situation, there relationship behavior directed from one party to another in are not many support type resources that are easily accessible, domestic relationships, both physical and emotional, is a especially to people lacking transportation and to those residing in rural or suburban areas. LEAF is being created to address the common problem. When the behavior occurs in intimate issues that arise from limits in physical community support. The relationships this is called intimate partner violence. LEAF acronym stands for lending encouragement, affirming futures. aims to provide an easily accessible support system to those These embody the vision for a system to provide support to those who have escaped from the abusive situation, especially to in difficult situations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Loopix Anonymity System Ania M
    The Loopix Anonymity System Ania M. Piotrowska and Jamie Hayes, University College London; Tariq Elahi, KU Leuven; Sebastian Meiser and George Danezis, University College London https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/piotrowska This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium August 16–18, 2017 • Vancouver, BC, Canada ISBN 978-1-931971-40-9 Open access to the Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX The Loopix Anonymity System Ania M. Piotrowska Jamie Hayes Tariq Elahi University College London University College London KU Leuven Sebastian Meiser George Danezis University College London University College London Abstract cent leaks of extensive mass surveillance programs1, ex- posing such meta-data leads to significant privacy risks. We present Loopix, a low-latency anonymous commu- Since 2004, Tor [20], a practical manifestation of nication system that provides bi-directional ‘third-party’ circuit-based onion routing, has become the most popu- sender and receiver anonymity and unobservability. lar anonymous communication tool, with systems such Loopix leverages cover traffic and Poisson mixing—brief as Herd [33], Riposte [11], HORNET [10] and Vu- independent message delays—to provide anonymity and vuzela [46] extending and strengthening this paradigm. to achieve traffic analysis resistance against, including In contrast, message-based architectures, based on mix but not limited to, a global network adversary. Mixes and networks, have become unfashionable due to perceived clients self-monitor and protect against active attacks via higher latencies, that cannot accommodate real-time self-injected loops of traffic. The traffic loops also serve communications. However, unless cover traffic is em- as cover traffic to provide stronger anonymity and a mea- ployed, onion routing is susceptible to traffic analysis at- sure of sender and receiver unobservability.
    [Show full text]
  • Internetsownboy Transcri
    [Music] >>A cofounder of the social, news and entertainment website Reddit has been found dead. >>He certainly was a prodigy, although he never kind of thought of himself like that. >>He was totally unexcited about starting businesses and making money. >>There's a profound sense of loss tonight in Highland Park, Aaron Swartz's hometown, as loved ones say goodbye to one of the Internet's brightest lights. >>Freedom, open access, and computer activists are mourning his loss. >>An astonishing intellect, if you talk to people who knew him. >>He was killed by the government, and MIT betrayed all of its basic principles. >>They wanted to make an example out of him, okay? >>Governments have an insatiable desire to control. >>He was potentially facing 35 years in prison and a one million dollar fine. >>Raising questions of prosecutorial zeal, and I would say even misconduct. Have you looked into that particular matter and reached any conclusions? >>Growing up, you know, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had told me were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be. They weren't natural at all, they were things that could be changed and they were things that, more importantly were wrong and should change. And once I realized that, there was really kind of no going back. >>Welcome to story reading time. The name of the book is "Paddington at the Fair". >>Well, he was born in Highland Park and grew up here. Aaron came from a family of three brothers, all extraordinarily bright.
    [Show full text]
  • Should You Take Investment Advice from Wallstreetbets?
    Should You Take Investment Advice From WallStreetBets? Should You Take Investment Advice From WallStreetBets? A Data­Driven Approach May 2021 Tolga Buz Gerard de Melo Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam [email protected] [email protected] Abstract Reddit’s WallStreetBets (WSB) community has come to prominence in light of its notable role in affecting the stock prices of what are now referred to as meme stocks. Yet very little is known about the reliability of the highly speculative investment advice disseminated on WSB. This paper analyses WSB data spanning from January 2019 to April 2021 in order to assess how successful an investment strategy relying on the community’s recommenda­ tions could have been. We detect buy and sell advice and identify the community’s most popular stocks, based on which we define a WSB portfolio. Our evaluation shows that this portfolio has grown approx. 200% over the last three years and approx. 480% over the last year, significantly outperforming the S&P500. The average short­term accuracy of buy and sell signals, in contrast, is not found to be significantly better than randomly or equally distributed buy decisions within the same time frame. However, we present a tech­ nique for estimating whether posts are proactive as opposed to reactive and show that by focusing on a subset of more promising buy signals, a trader could have made investments yielding higher returns than the broader market or the strategy of trusting all posted buy signals. Lastly, the analysis is also conducted specifically for the period before 2021 in or­ der to factor out the effects of the GameStop hype of January 2021 – the results confirm the conclusions and suggest that the 2021 hype merely amplified pre­existing characteristics.
    [Show full text]
  • Reddit Quarantined: Can Changing Platform Affordances Reduce Hateful Material Online?
    Volume 9 | Issue 4 Reddit quarantined: can changing platform affordances reduce hateful material online? Simon Copland Australian National University [email protected] DOI: https://doi.org/10.14763/2020.4.1516 Published: 21 October 2020 Received: 20 May 2020 Accepted: 6 August 2020 Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist that have influenced the text. Licence: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (Germany) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en Copyright remains with the author(s). Citation: Copland, S. (2020). Reddit quarantined: can changing platform affordances reduce hateful material online?. Internet Policy Review, 9(4). DOI: 10.14763/ 2020.4.1516 Keywords: Reddit, Affordances, Misogyny, Manosphere, Digital platforms, Online platforms Abstract: This paper studies the efficacy of the Reddit’s quarantine, increasingly implemented in the platform as a means of restricting and reducing misogynistic and other hateful material. Using the case studies of r/TheRedPill and r/Braincels, the paper argues the quarantine successfully cordoned off affected subreddits and associated hateful material from the rest of the platform. It did not, however, reduce the levels of hateful material within the affected spaces. Instead many users reacted by leaving Reddit for less regulated spaces, with Reddit making this hateful material someone else’s problem. The paper argues therefore that the success of the quarantine as a policy response is mixed. 2 Internet Policy Review 9(4) | 2020 This paper is part of Trust in the system, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest- edited by Péter Mezei and Andreea Verteş-Olteanu.
    [Show full text]
  • Is Reporting Facebook Posts Anonymous
    Is Reporting Facebook Posts Anonymous Maurits remains pug-nosed: she scrimmages her hysterias greys too covetously? Unpaired Barrett always bureaucratizedinveigh his dynamos ahead, if Swenis Carter is indicative ergative andor designate phantasmagoric each. Garwood enough? never wisecracks any eluate While i mentioned how overtaxed the condition of facebook posts Atheism is reported who to post, you for all you need. Submit the Tip Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and. 10 tips tricks and secrets to accomplish about Facebook Messenger. East district attorney. A 'drop down arrow' should begin giving off a menu option of report the image species or comment You can unfriend or prosecute a nail from Facebook Click on. It down millions of facebook is reporting anonymous posts being sexually assaulted by submitting an appropriate investigatory response, it has so correct drones? As posting something online posts included charged comments by doing this post pics from the anonymous should grow a broad range of hate uk. While many people in checking the reporting is facebook anonymous posts that context of it and frustrated me? Oh god or post, posts or legitimate enough participants who use. Data from participants who reported using Facebook at least once on day. Facebook apologises after employee's anonymous post talks. Is anonymous This noon I reported some dumb corona virus meme on our mutual community. If found report them for posting a baby of bright child Facebook. Because that many social media platforms offer anonymity and because disgruntled users can so we issue threats that i may continue no intention of acting on.
    [Show full text]
  • 124214015 Full.Pdf
    PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS AGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN K.A APPLEGATE’S ANIMORPHS AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By MIKAEL ARI WIBISONO Student Number: 124214015 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2016 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI DEFENSE MECHANISM ADOPTED BY THE PROTAGONISTS AGAINST THE TERROR OF DEATH IN K.A APPLEGATE’S ANIMORPHS AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters By MIKAEL ARI WIBISONO Student Number: 124214015 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2016 ii PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI A SarjanaSastra Undergraduate Thesis DEFENSE MECIIAMSM ADOPTED BY TITE AGAINST PROTAGOMSTS THE TERROR OT OTATTT IN K.A APPLEGATE'S AAUMORPHS By Mikael Ari Wibisono Student Number: lz4ll4}ls Defended before the Board of Examiners On August 25,2A16 and Declared Acceptable BOARD OF EXAMINERS Name Chairperson Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. Secretary Dra. Sri Mulyani, M.A., ph.D / Member I Dr. F.X. Siswadi, M.A. Member2 Drs. HirmawanW[ianarkq M.Hum. Member 3 Elisa DwiWardani, S.S., M.Hum Yogyakarta, August 31 z}rc Faculty of Letters fr'.arrr s41 Dharma University s" -_# 1,ffi QG*l(tls srst*\. \ tQrtnR<{l
    [Show full text]
  • Le Site Américain Reddit Comme Espace De Variation De L'anglais
    lol thats how reddit talks;) : le site américain Reddit comme espace de variation de l’anglais : étude de corpus intersectionnelle et quantitative d’usages non standard, au prisme du genre, de l’âge et de l’ethnicité Marie Flesch To cite this version: Marie Flesch. lol thats how reddit talks;) : le site américain Reddit comme espace de variation de l’anglais : étude de corpus intersectionnelle et quantitative d’usages non standard, au prisme du genre, de l’âge et de l’ethnicité. Linguistique. Université de Lorraine, 2020. Français. NNT : 2020LORR0192. tel-03129082 HAL Id: tel-03129082 https://hal.univ-lorraine.fr/tel-03129082 Submitted on 2 Feb 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. AVERTISSEMENT Ce document est le fruit d'un long travail approuvé par le jury de soutenance et mis à disposition de l'ensemble de la communauté universitaire élargie. Il est soumis à la propriété intellectuelle de l'auteur. Ceci implique une obligation de citation et de référencement lors de l’utilisation de ce document. D'autre part, toute contrefaçon, plagiat, reproduction illicite encourt une poursuite pénale. Contact : [email protected] LIENS Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle.
    [Show full text]