Collective attention in the age of (mis)information

Delia Mocanu, Luca Rossi, Qian Zhang, Marton Karsai, Walter Quattrociocchi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

In this work we study, on a sample of 2.3million individuals, how Facebook users consumed different information at the edge of political discussion and news during the last Italian electoral competition. Pages are categorized, according to their topics and the communities of interests they pertain to, in (a) alternative information sources (diffusing topics that are neglected by science and main stream media); (b) online political activism; and (c) main stream media. We show that attention patterns are similar despite the different qualitative nature of the information, meaning that unsubstantiated claims (mainly conspiracy theories) reverberate for as long as other information. Finally, we classify users according to their interaction patterns among the different topics and measure how they responded to the injection of 2788 false information. Our analysis reveals that users which are prominently interacting with conspiracists information sources are more prone to interact with intentional false claims.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1198-1204
Number of pages7
JournalComputers in Human Behavior
Volume51
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Collective narratives
  • Misinformation
  • Online social network

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