Agenda Negotiation and Valence Negotiation under Selective Spiral
29/08/2019 (Thursday) 13:00-14:00 E21-G035 (venue relocated due to over registration)
Who determine the content communicated between releasers (senders, media), receivers (readers, listeners, audience) and relayers (re-twitters, forwarders, gatekeepers)? Who determine the content of communication, which ultimately determines people’s collective perception of the world? The powerful-effect theories, e.g., hypodermic needle, cultivation, agenda setting, priming and framing, focus on releasers, while limited-effect theories, e.g., selective exposure, uses and gratifications, two-step flow, and gatekeeping, focus on receivers and relayers.
This series of studies, based on a theory of selective spiral and millions of postings crawled from toutiao.com (Headlines Today) in two years and nine months, 2015-2017, show initial evidences that the classic theories may be all partly right. Both agenda, i.e., the subjects to be discussed, and valence, i.e., good, neutral or bad about the subjects under discussion, may be products of negotiation between releasers, receivers, and relayers. We will also introduce an emerging and evolving framework for analyzing this type of data, first-round analysis of selective spiral, or FRASS, including key indicators such as selectivity and share of contribution.