ABSTRACT

What factors influence users to believe the stories they find in social media, and what role do emotions play for users in concluding that a particular fact is ‘true’? This article examines one aspect of emotionalized communication in social networks in an information war context, namely, how social network users make decisions about the reliability of the information they receive. We employ a qualitative study of a single case – a discussion among Russian-speaking Livejournal.com and Facebook.com users of a tragic incident in Ukraine – the deadly fire that took place in the Odessa Trade Union House on 2 May, 2014. The relevancy of this case consists in how, for all its uniqueness as a tragic event, the communications by users in its immediate aftermath typify important features of social media discussions of ‘shocking events’. This article considers a general model of behavior of users who must try to comprehend the tragic news and are caught in a state of uncertainty amid acute confrontation between actors in an information conflict.

摘要

哪些因素影响用户相信他们在社交媒体中发现的故事，以及情感在推断特定事实为“真实”时对用户起什么作用？本文研究了在信息战中社交网络中情感化交流的一个方面，即社交网络用户如何决定他们所接收信息的可靠性。我们对单个案件进行了定性研究-乌克兰俄语悲剧事件的说俄语的Livejournal.com和Facebook.com用户之间的讨论-2014年5月2日在敖德萨工会大厦发生的致命火灾。该案例的相关性在于，尽管作为悲剧事件具有独特性，但用户在其后果之后的交流如何体现了社交媒体对“令人震惊的事件”的讨论的重要特征。