{"title":"Analyzing narrative contagion through digital storytelling in social media conversations: An AI-powered computational approach","authors":"Xinyan Zhao, Zexin Ma, Rong Ma","doi":"10.1177/14614448241285445","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite the growing popularity of digital narratives, research on digital storytelling and its spread through social media interactions remains limited. Inspired by the social contagion theory, we introduce the concept of narrative contagion—where a story shared by a person or organization prompts others to share their stories—and investigate its process and outcome in online cancer communities. Utilizing a large dataset of 849 Facebook posts, 47,291 comments, and 14,466 replies, our artificial intelligence (AI)-based computational analysis provides evidence for narrative contagion among individual users in organization-hosted cancer communities on Facebook. It also reveals different organizational message characteristics, such as emotional arousal, post topic, and request for storytelling, that affect user storytelling and emotional support in comments and replies. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of digital storytelling and its collective dynamics in online communities.","PeriodicalId":19149,"journal":{"name":"New Media & Society","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Media & Society","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241285445","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite the growing popularity of digital narratives, research on digital storytelling and its spread through social media interactions remains limited. Inspired by the social contagion theory, we introduce the concept of narrative contagion—where a story shared by a person or organization prompts others to share their stories—and investigate its process and outcome in online cancer communities. Utilizing a large dataset of 849 Facebook posts, 47,291 comments, and 14,466 replies, our artificial intelligence (AI)-based computational analysis provides evidence for narrative contagion among individual users in organization-hosted cancer communities on Facebook. It also reveals different organizational message characteristics, such as emotional arousal, post topic, and request for storytelling, that affect user storytelling and emotional support in comments and replies. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of digital storytelling and its collective dynamics in online communities.
期刊介绍:
New Media & Society engages in critical discussions of the key issues arising from the scale and speed of new media development, drawing on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and on both theoretical and empirical research. The journal includes contributions on: -the individual and the social, the cultural and the political dimensions of new media -the global and local dimensions of the relationship between media and social change -contemporary as well as historical developments -the implications and impacts of, as well as the determinants and obstacles to, media change the relationship between theory, policy and practice.