Detecting online expressional anomie and its evolutions in social media

Pages703-721
Date05 August 2019
Published date05 August 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/EL-02-2019-0021
AuthorQingqing Zhou,Ming Jing
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet
Detecting online expressional
anomie and its evolutions
in social media
Qingqing Zhou
Department of Network and New Media,
Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China, and
Ming Jing
Department of Journalism, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
Abstract
Purpose Expressional anomie (e.g. obscene words) can hinder communications and even obstruct
improvements of national literacy. Meanwhile, the borderless and rapid transmission of the internet has
exacerbated the inuences. Hence, the purpose of this paper is detecting online anomic expression
automatically and analyzing dynamic evolution processes of expressional anomie, so as to reveal
multidimensionalstatus of expressional anomie.
Design/methodology/approach This paper conductedexpressional anomie analysis via ne-grained
microblog mining. Specically, anomicmicroblogs and their anomic types were identied via a supervised
classication method. Then, the evolutions of expressional anomie were analyzed, and impacts of users
characteristics on the evolution process were mined. Finally, expressional anomie characteristics and
evolutiontrends were obtained.
Findings Empirical resultson microblogs indicate that more effectiveand diversied measures need to be
used to address the current large-scale anomie in expression. Moreover, measures should be tailored to
individualsand local conditions.
Originality/value To the best of the authorsknowledge, it is the rst research to mine evolutions of
expressional anomie automatically in social media. It may discover more continuous and universal rules of
expressionalanomie, so as to optimize the online expression environment.
Keywords User-generated content, Expressional anomie, Expressional anomie evolution,
Anomie classication, Social media
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The internet has changed peoplesway of life and expanded their discourse powers,making
it possible for people to air their views freely. Due to rapid information transmission and
exible participation forms,the internet has become an increasingly important platform for
opinion exchange and expression.Currently, people use various online expression tools (e.g.
social media, forums, online reviews, instant messaging) to express their opinions and
attitudes on products, events, or policies. However, the tremendous impact of online
expression has both positive and negative aspects.Due to the arbitrariness and anonymity
of online expression, and the lack of corresponding network morality, some people use
unscrupulous or swear words to conduct attack, abuses, or slander, thus forming massive
This work is supported by the National Social Science Fund Project (No. 14BXW029) and the
National Social Science Fund Project (No. 19CTQ031).
Detecting
online
expressional
anomie
703
Received2 February 2019
Revised15 May 2019
1July2019
Accepted19 July 2019
TheElectronic Library
Vol.37 No. 4, 2019
pp. 703-721
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-02-2019-0021
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
anomic expressions. Hence, this paper denes expressional anomie as a fundamental
divergence in peoples understandings of what is an appropriate norm of expression,
according to Mertons theory (Merton, 1938). In other words, anomic expressions are
improper expressions with irregular words (dirty words, insults, slanders, etc.). Moreover,
people are easily controlled by irrational and extreme emotions, causing a lack of calm
analysis and wise judgment. Hence, adverse effects of expressional anomie can be rapidly
expanded, which may seriously affect daily life and even social stability. Therefore, the
anomie of online expressionneeds to be solved urgently.
With the rapid developmentof Web 2.0, research into online expression has becomea hot
topic for scholars and even thewhole society. Anomie research about online expression aims
to identify and analyze anomic expression (e.g. bestial words), so as to help standardize
network expression, optimizethe network environment, and avoid bad inuencesof anomic
expression on ofine expression, especially expression of teenagers. Traditional survey
methods (e.g. questionnaires, observations, and interviews) are proving increasingly
inadequate, due to the small size of data andhigh cost of data collection. As one of the most
popular social media platforms in China, Weibo (http://weibo.com) has attracted more than
337 million active users, and theseusers generate massive online contents (i.e. microblogs) to
express their opinions and attitudes on policies, events, products, and many other aspects
(Wang et al.,2017). Therefore, microblogs can be used to conduct expressional anomie
research, which may overcome the deciency of traditionalmethods. Meanwhile, due to the
continuity of microblogs, evolutions of expressional anomie can be identied. Hence, this
paper recognizes anomic expression and multidimensional evolution processes via ne-
grained mining on massive microblogs.It aims to understand the current situation of online
expression and identify the dynamic impact of expressional anomie on different types of
users, so as to optimize the online expression environment and promote the positive
dissemination of social media. Specically, rst, anomic expressions from a microblog
corpus were distinguished and corresponding anomie types were determined automatically
via supervised machine learning. Then, overall anomie evolutions and user-based anomie
evolutions were analyzed over time to obtain dynamic characteristics of specic anomie
types.
Empirical results on microblogs indicate that expressional anomie is ubiquitous. With
the implementation of targeted measures and the improvement of usersqualities, some
positive results have been achieved. However, sustained and efcient measures are still
necessary. Meanwhile, user characteristics result in different anomie evolution processes.
Specically, male users are more prone to expressional anomie, while female users
expressional anomie is increasing.The anomie difference between regions is obvious, which
may be related to many factors, suchas social ideology, economic level, and education level.
Hereby, effectivemeasures according to local conditions and specic genders are essential.
Different from existing research, this paper pays more attention to characteristics of
different types of expressional anomie and dynamic evolutions of these anomie types to
obtain more ne-grained results, so as to help users understand the current online
expression environment in more detail, and provide more comprehensive decision support
for relevant functionaldepartments.
Related work
This paper used the online expression in social media to analyze evolutions of users
expressional anomie. There are two aspects of related works, namely, research sources for
expressional anomieanalysis and research methods for expressionalanomie analysis.
EL
37,4
704

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