The Role of Emotions in Adversarial Information Campaigns
Abstract
This project examines the influence of specific emotions (e.g., anger, contempt) and the intensity of those emotions on information sharing and engagement with narratives in Polish and Lithuanian social media. We originally proposed two studies: Study 1 would entail the collection of real-world, public Facebookand YouTube data from Poland and Lithuania (chosen for their strategic relevance as well as the existing linguistic and cultural competency of the research team). Study 2 would manipulate the narratives and emotions found to be relevant in Study 1, but in a setting that delivers experimental control andrandomization of conditions. Study 2 is dependent on Study 1 occurring first, as the development of the experimental materials relies on the identification of narratives and likely impactful emotions and their combinations. Thus, to respond to requests to decrease our costs, we will no longer conduct Study 2.In this project, we will still annotate a sample of public social media messages. Annotators will be recruited from universities in Poland and Lithuania. We will examine YouTube videos (four minutes or less) and Facebook posts because of the relatively widespread use of these media in these countries, and we will sample based on controversial political topics trending during data collection that are likely to be targets of Russian information campaigns. We would also collect data on sharing and engagement and likely covariates. As noted in the proposal, annotation is likely a superior method to detecting a range ofdifferent emotions, and their intensity levels, in mixed-media data. We will be able to conduct multi-level statistical analyses of the impact of emotions, specific narratives, account and message features (e.g., language, culture, possibility of bot networks attached to the accounts) on social media sharing and engagement.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 15, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912506
Entities
People
- Susannah Paletz
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Maryland