TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotional consequences and attention rewards
T2 - the social effects of ratings on Reddit
AU - Davis, Jenny L.
AU - Graham, Timothy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Rating features on social media platforms affect visibility algorithms and act as symbolic markers of evaluation. This paper addresses the social effects of content ratings through a case study of Reddit. Reddit is a social news site on which users in topic-based communities (subreddits) create posts upon which others upvote, downvote, and comment. Vote scores indicate convergence with, and divergence from, community norms. Analysing data from the platform's three most popular subreddits, we ask: How do rating features afford emotional expression and content engagement? Findings from a Variable-Lag Granger Causality model show that for a portion of Reddit users (14.5%), vote scores predict subsequent emotional expression, with upvotes preceding positive sentiments and downvotes preceding negative sentiments. This is the first systematic test of how ratings influence emotional expression on a social media platform. Findings also show that downvoted content receives higher levels of engagement than upvoted content. Together, these findings suggest a paradox in which divergence from community norms, as indicated by vote score patterns, have emotional consequences and attention rewards.
AB - Rating features on social media platforms affect visibility algorithms and act as symbolic markers of evaluation. This paper addresses the social effects of content ratings through a case study of Reddit. Reddit is a social news site on which users in topic-based communities (subreddits) create posts upon which others upvote, downvote, and comment. Vote scores indicate convergence with, and divergence from, community norms. Analysing data from the platform's three most popular subreddits, we ask: How do rating features afford emotional expression and content engagement? Findings from a Variable-Lag Granger Causality model show that for a portion of Reddit users (14.5%), vote scores predict subsequent emotional expression, with upvotes preceding positive sentiments and downvotes preceding negative sentiments. This is the first systematic test of how ratings influence emotional expression on a social media platform. Findings also show that downvoted content receives higher levels of engagement than upvoted content. Together, these findings suggest a paradox in which divergence from community norms, as indicated by vote score patterns, have emotional consequences and attention rewards.
KW - Emotion
KW - Reddit
KW - affordances
KW - attention
KW - social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100313392&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874476
DO - 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874476
M3 - Article
SN - 1369-118X
VL - 24
SP - 649
EP - 666
JO - Information Communication and Society
JF - Information Communication and Society
IS - 5
ER -