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X Demographics
Mendeley readers
Attention Score in Context
| Title |
Topic Modeling Reveals Distinct Interests within an Online Conspiracy Forum
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Frontiers in Psychology, February 2018
|
| DOI | 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00189 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Colin Klein, Peter Clutton, Vince Polito |
| Abstract |
Conspiracy theories play a troubling role in political discourse. Online forums provide a valuable window into everyday conspiracy theorizing, and can give a clue to the motivations and interests of those who post in such forums. Yet this online activity can be difficult to quantify and study. We describe a unique approach to studying online conspiracy theorists which used non-negative matrix factorization to create a topic model of authors' contributions to the main conspiracy forum on Reddit.com. This subreddit provides a large corpus of comments which spans many years and numerous authors. We show that within the forum, there are multiple sub-populations distinguishable by their loadings on different topics in the model. Further, we argue, these differences are interpretable as differences in background beliefs and motivations. The diversity of the distinct subgroups places constraints on theories of what generates conspiracy theorizing. We argue that traditional "monological" believers are only the tip of an iceberg of commenters. Neither simple irrationality nor common preoccupations can account for the observed diversity. Instead, we suggest, those who endorse conspiracies seem to be primarily brought together by epistemological concerns, and that these central concerns link an otherwise heterogenous group of individuals. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 22 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 5 | 23% |
| Australia | 3 | 14% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 9% |
| France | 1 | 5% |
| Germany | 1 | 5% |
| Switzerland | 1 | 5% |
| Canada | 1 | 5% |
| Unknown | 8 | 36% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 19 | 86% |
| Scientists | 2 | 9% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 5% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 92 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 92 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 15 | 16% |
| Student > Bachelor | 12 | 13% |
| Researcher | 9 | 10% |
| Student > Master | 9 | 10% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 7 | 8% |
| Other | 16 | 17% |
| Unknown | 24 | 26% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Psychology | 22 | 24% |
| Social Sciences | 12 | 13% |
| Computer Science | 8 | 9% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 4 | 4% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 3 | 3% |
| Other | 16 | 17% |
| Unknown | 27 | 29% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 131. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 May 2022.
All research outputs
#309,154
of 24,978,429 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Psychology
#630
of 33,728 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#7,199
of 336,833 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Psychology
#19
of 572 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,978,429 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 33,728 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 13.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,833 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 572 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.