ABSTRACT
In this study, we focus on decrease in public activity of news media audiences on social networks and on possible media strategies of "comfortable involvement" of socially anxious people into commenting. We draw upon cognitive research that describes a vicious circle of user experience. The environment for the anxiety scenarios in relation to user comments creates favorable conditions for the growth of digital escapism. We hypothesize that: 1) Users who are looking for getting rid of anxiety on social networks are drawn into an even greater spiral of anxiety, interacting with other people in the context of news stories that provoke the whipping up of negative emotions;2) The dynamics of the cascade of messages can depend on the characteristics of the emotions embedded in the message and its context. We took 10 Russian regional media and their content on the VKontakte social network published from November 2020 to November 2021 and processed all commented posts in each media. Frequency analysis of messages demonstrated no specific pattern for anxiety. Number of comments and likes on comments correlated with specific regional issues and local news agenda more than with coronavirus agenda. Our results showed that engaged users comment more than 2 times in a period but drop out of the discussion in 2-3 moths if agenda is not escalated by news outlet itself. Emotional triggers in news stories containing reasons for anxiety depends on a combination of factors from the site's functionality to the type of news media and local information policy.
ABSTRACT
In this study, we focus on decrease in public activity of news media audiences on social networks and on possible media strategies of “comfortable involvement” of socially anxious people into commenting. We draw upon cognitive research that describes a vicious circle of user experience. The environment for the anxiety scenarios in relation to user comments creates favorable conditions for the growth of digital escapism. We hypothesize that: 1) Users who are looking for getting rid of anxiety on social networks are drawn into an even greater spiral of anxiety, interacting with other people in the context of news stories that provoke the whipping up of negative emotions;2) The dynamics of the cascade of messages can depend on the characteristics of the emotions embedded in the message and its context. We took 10 Russian regional media and their content on the VKontakte social network published from November 2020 to November 2021 and processed all commented posts in each media. Frequency analysis of messages demonstrated no specific pattern for anxiety. Number of comments and likes on comments correlated with specific regional issues and local news agenda more than with coronavirus agenda. Our results showed that engaged users comment more than 2 times in a period but drop out of the discussion in 2–3 moths if agenda is not escalated by news outlet itself. Emotional triggers in news stories containing reasons for anxiety depends on a combination of factors from the site’s functionality to the type of news media and local information policy. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The article is devoted to the reaction of the Russian-speaking audience to news reports about the pandemic in large news groups on the VKontakte platform. Based on five scenarios for the development of discussions, the authors qualitatively researched the messages and comments to them in 30 groups devoted to the local agenda of 10 different Russian regions. The found trends were confirmed by experts from these regions. As a theoretical premise, we used the texts of classic media researchers of our time (such as Jaron Lanier, Geert Lovink and John Keane) and an analysis of how emotions, such as fear and hope, actually manifest themselves in social networks during pandemic. We also used our previous work to reflect the specifics of the Russian-speaking social media ecosystem. The study shows that in both April and November, the dominant scenarios remained the utopian, denying the presence of the virus or its danger, and the realistic scenarios. At the same time, the decrease in general interest in the pandemic agenda did not affect the fact that the emotional context of its discussion became more positive. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.