分析YouTube内容生产与消费如何推动极端思想形成
Examining the Role of YouTube Production and Consumption Dynamics on the Formation of Extreme Ideologies
- 结合用户观看记录与两轮调查数据，追踪意识形态变化
- 极端倾向用户更偏好高愤怒、怨恨类内容，且其关注频道也具类似特征
- 发现内容生产方主动引导用户行为，而非单纯迎合需求
算法驱动平台如YouTube上的内容生产与消费关系，对意识形态行为的形成具有关键作用。尽管以往研究多聚焦于用户行为与推荐算法，但生产与消费之间的互动及其在意识形态转变中的作用仍缺乏深入探讨。本文通过结合一年期的YouTube观看历史与1100名美国参与者的两轮意识形态调查，识别出经历显著极端化倾向的用户，并对比其内容消费模式及所关注频道的生产特征与意识形态稳定用户。结果表明，极端化用户具有不同的消费习惯；其偏好的频道也更倾向于生产包含更高愤怒、怨恨等情绪标记的内容。进一步通过时间序列分析发现，内容生产者并非仅被动响应用户需求，而是可能作为主要驱动力影响消费行为。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The relationship between content production and consumption on algorithm-driven platforms like YouTube plays a critical role in shaping ideological behaviors. While prior work has largely focused on user behavior and algorithmic recommendations, the interplay between what is produced and what gets consumed, and its role in ideological shifts remains understudied. In this paper, we present a longitudinal, mixed-methods analysis combining one year of YouTube watch history with two waves of ideological surveys from 1,100 U.S. participants. We identify users who exhibited significant shifts toward more extreme ideologies and compare their content consumption and the production patterns of YouTube channels they engaged with to ideologically stable users. Our findings show that users who became more extreme consumed have different consumption habits from those who do not. This gets amplified by the fact that channels favored by users with extreme ideologies also have a higher affinity to produce content with a higher anger, grievance and other such markers. Lastly, using time series analysis, we examine whether content producers are the primary drivers of consumption behavior or merely responding to user demand.
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