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The Collaborative Construction and Evolution of Pseudo-knowledge in Online Conversations

Published: 28 July 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Misinformation has found a new natural habitat in the digital age. Thousands of forums, blogs, and alternative news sources amplify inaccurate information to such a degree that it impacts our collective intelligence. Widespread misinformation is troubling, not just because it is wrong, but also because it can persist in the face of attempts to correct it, and thus becomes part of a larger culture of community-based pseudoknowledge (PK). Prior work has focused on the motivations and psychology of those who create and maintain PK but has neglected inspection of the dynamics of collective PK production itself. In this exploratory case study, we illustrate how the active participation of multiple collaborators adapts PK over time through a process we liken to participatory storytelling. We argue that the Internet provides a uniquely well-suited environment for evolving PK that is "more fit", in that it is more engaging, easier to defend, and possibly easier to spread.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
#SMSociety17: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Media & Society
July 2017
414 pages
ISBN:9781450348478
DOI:10.1145/3097286
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 28 July 2017

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Author Tags

  1. Misinformation
  2. argumentation
  3. collective intelligence
  4. conspiracy theory
  5. diffusion of information
  6. knowledge construction
  7. narrative
  8. online conversations
  9. pseudoscience

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Cited By

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  • (2023)Immigrant-critical alternative media in online conversationsPLOS ONE10.1371/journal.pone.029463618:11(e0294636)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2023
  • (2023)Exploring Digital Misinformation as a Sociotechnical Phenomenon: Insights from a Small-scale StudyProceedings of the XXII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3638067.3638098(1-12)Online publication date: 16-Oct-2023
  • (2020)Mapping the Narrative Ecosystem of Conspiracy Theories in Online Anti-vaccination DiscussionsInternational Conference on Social Media and Society10.1145/3400806.3400828(184-192)Online publication date: 22-Jul-2020
  • (2019)Online Misinformation SpreadProceedings of the 2019 3rd International Conference on Information System and Data Mining10.1145/3325917.3325938(171-178)Online publication date: 6-Apr-2019
  • (2017)Visions of CSCL: eight provocations for the future of the fieldInternational Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning10.1007/s11412-017-9267-512:4(423-467)Online publication date: 13-Dec-2017

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