Abstract
Discussion topics go sometimes viral in social media
without a seemingly coherent pattern. Existing literature shows
these discussions can reach a very high level, but, notably, they
prevail to varying degrees. This paper investigates the anatomy of
viral social media events using a dataset of 960 viral social media
discussion topics that have been identified by an algorithm from
a variety of social media sources over two years’ time. A negative
binomial regression shows that the average daily amount and the
relative change in the daily amount of social media platforms
at which the event has been discussed has a positive effect on
the duration of the event. Average or relative amount of posts
or authors has no or very little effect on event duration. The
results suggest that viral social media events last longer when
people using different social media platforms get exposed to them.
This finding contributes to the literature on social media events,
virality, and information diffusion.
without a seemingly coherent pattern. Existing literature shows
these discussions can reach a very high level, but, notably, they
prevail to varying degrees. This paper investigates the anatomy of
viral social media events using a dataset of 960 viral social media
discussion topics that have been identified by an algorithm from
a variety of social media sources over two years’ time. A negative
binomial regression shows that the average daily amount and the
relative change in the daily amount of social media platforms
at which the event has been discussed has a positive effect on
the duration of the event. Average or relative amount of posts
or authors has no or very little effect on event duration. The
results suggest that viral social media events last longer when
people using different social media platforms get exposed to them.
This finding contributes to the literature on social media events,
virality, and information diffusion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Publisher | University of Hawai'i at Manoa |
| Publication date | 2018 |
| Pages | 2173-2182 |
| Article number | 0273 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-0-9981331-1-9 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
| MoE publication type | A4 Article in conference proceedings |
| Event | Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - Waikoloa Village, United States Duration: 3 Jan 2018 → 6 Jan 2018 Conference number: 51 |
Fields of Science
- 113 Computer and information sciences
- 518 Media and communications