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Examining the Public Response to Vigilantism: Polarization and Emotions in Social Media Discourse

  • Shalini Kapali Kurumathur
  • , Paras Bhatt
  • , Rohit Valecha
  • , Govind Hariharan
  • , H. Raghav Rao
  • University of Texas at San Antonio
  • Kennesaw State University

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This paper examines the social media discourse of two real-world vigilantism incidents that had invited nation-wide debate: Murder of 'Ahmaud Arbery' (victim), a racially motivated hate crime and the fatal shooting of two men by 'Kyle Rittenhouse' (an aggressor). Both these incidents had invited a lot of debate in social media. However, little is known about the nature of discussions on vigilantism in social media. In this paper, first, through topic modeling, we examine the kind of discussions that were triggered by these incidents. We identify various dimensions of the on-line public conversations. Second, we study if there is polarization in the public discourses. We find that victim-oriented discourse on vigilantism displayed more polarization in a certain dimension and aggressor-oriented discourse on vigilantism displayed more polarization in another dimension. We also found that aggressor-oriented vigilantism discussions had higher negative emotion scores compared to victim-oriented discussion.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2022
Subtitle of host publication"Digitization for the Next Generation"
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
ISBN (Electronic)9781713893615
StatePublished - 2022
Event43rd International Conference on Information Systems: Digitization for the Next Generation, ICIS 2022 - Copenhagen, Denmark
Duration: Dec 9 2022Dec 14 2022

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2022: "Digitization for the Next Generation"

Conference

Conference43rd International Conference on Information Systems: Digitization for the Next Generation, ICIS 2022
Country/TerritoryDenmark
CityCopenhagen
Period12/9/2212/14/22

Keywords

  • polarization
  • Social media discourses
  • vigilantism

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