{"id":3422,"date":"2017-09-02T18:05:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T16:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/?p=3422"},"modified":"2017-10-13T12:15:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T10:15:39","slug":"quand-le-web-eclaire-la-transformation-des-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/quand-le-web-eclaire-la-transformation-des-messages\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"When the Internet sheds light on the transformation of messages"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know that the transmission of messages between individuals is often imperfect and\/or incomplete. The transformation of a single word or group of words can change the initially intended meaning. A number of researchers are working to deconstruct the dynamics and effects of this phenomenon.
\nThis is the subject that Sciences Po professor and medialab researcher Camille Roth<\/a> and S\u00e9bastien Lerique, a junior researcher at the \u00c9cole des hautes \u00e9tudes en sciences sociales, explored in research they share in \u201cThe Semantic Drift of Quotations in Blogspace: A Case Study in Short-Term Cultural Evolution<\/a>\u201d, which will be published in Cognitive Science.<\/i><\/p>\n

A new research area: the blogosphere<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

The study\u2019s originality lies in its use of real situations – an in vivo<\/i> approach – in its examination of the transmission of messages in the blogosphere. This type of research usually takes place in a laboratory. Thus, instead of studying \u201cfictional\u201d situations where the information is simply passed from one participant to the next during an experiment organized in vitro<\/i>, the researchers seized an unprecedented opportunity to tackle this issue by processing an immense volume of digital traces.<\/p>\n

\"Little<\/p>\n

When diversity converges: the importance of cultural attraction <\/b>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

The idea guiding Camille Roth and S\u00e9bastien Lerique was to test the validity of Cultural Attraction Theory (CAT)*, which posits that cultural attractors and preferential reformulation phenomena explain the convergence of content at the collective level despite the more or less faithful reformulation of statements from one individual to the next.<\/p>\n

The adventures of Little Red Riding Hood \r\n\r\nA simple example illustrates this theory: there is no one version of Little Red Riding Hood. This (quasi)-universal fairytale underwent reformulations during its \u201ctravels\u201d. The reformulations varied according to the environment: in a given place, one element of the story might have better survived, while another element became secondary or disappeared; in other places these elements were arranged differently. Notwithstanding the different versions of Little Red Riding Hood, a key element remains: to elicit fear. This element is the cultural attractor, because fascination with fear is shared by all of humanity. <\/i><\/pre>\n
Identifying the transformation of messages on the blogosphere: \u00a0methods and results<\/strong><\/p>\n
To study this phenomenon, Camille Roth and S\u00e9bastien Lerique chose to explore the transformation of words that are part of quotes reposted by blogs. This choice was primarily made because quotation marks make it easy to identify this type of context via data processing \u201cscripts\u201d. Furthermore, these alterations are necessarily due to human reformulation rather than cut-and-paste.
\nIn order to describe the change in phrases when they are reused, the authors first developed a series of models enabling a reconstitution of the most likely relationships between the different quotes.
\nThus, they were able to describe the substitutions and identify the factors influencing them by drawing on standard linguistic variables, such as the age of acquisition of a word, its frequency, its length and the gap between the significance of the original term and that of the substitute term.<\/p>\n
\"Capture
Capture results screen on a search engine. Public Domain<\/p><\/div>\n
From “foolish” to “crazy”<\/strong>
\nAn illustrative example of this process is the transformation of the quotation of a verse by a Burmese poet (Saw Wai). The original poem\u2019s verse is: \u201cSenior general Than Shwe is foolish<\/b> with power\u201d, but several blogs quote \u201cSenior general Than Shwe is crazy<\/b> with power\u201d. This case allowed them to make several observations:<\/p>\n