دانلود رایگان مقالهارزیابی نابرابری دروغگویی اطلاعات جهانی از طریق همایش وب سایت

abstract

This study explores inequality in global internet by looking at structure of co-mentions across global top website domains. Findings show that websites of the U.S. were central and dominant in the global content flow. The network based on the level of corporate ownership was even more centralized, in which the top 10 sites producing at least 1% of all Internet citations were from U.S.-based companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, which together accounted for N70% of the network ties. In particular, Google was at the center of the network and serves as the Internet “gatekeeper”. Additionally, the global web is divided into two clusters of websites, one represented by websites owned by American firms and the other by Chinese companies. The study discusses how such divide might be the outcome of geopolitics, internet governance and media conglomeration.

5. Discussion

This study shows that co-mention network analysis, a derivative of hyperlink analysis, is useful in discerning global inequality in term of information gatekeeping. As argued in the beginning of the study, such inequality can reflect or reinforce dominance or marginalization in the attention economy. In particular, inequality could be a product of power law and preferential attachment—two organic forces shaping the web ecosystem. But inequality may be also shaped by domestic internet governance that emphasizes on sovereignty and control as well as conglomeration of media outlets. The findings first show that the global co-mention network follows power law and the rule of preferential attachment in that less cited websites tend to be connected to the most widely cited sites. The most popular websites tend to be more central in the co-mention network.