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Motivations, Purposes, and Means of Creating Information Cocoons Intentionally for Oneself: Looking on the Bright Side

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Information for a Better World: Normality, Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity (iConference 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13972))

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Abstract

Information cocoons have been criticized for their negative impact on individuals and the society. However, a newly observed phenomenon on Chinese social media is that some users are creating information cocoons intentionally for themselves. This study conducted a thematic analysis on 58 posts explicitly discussing such phenomenon collected from three popular Chinese social media platforms. The results indicate that the intentional creation of information cocoons for oneself can be driven by the self-defense or self-enhancement motivation and serve the purpose of self-control, safety, comfort, or utility. Managing information sources and affecting recommendation algorithms are the two major approaches to creating the information cocoons. This study sheds new light on the understanding of information cocoons and provides useful implications for improving recommender systems.

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Acknowledgement

This research has been made possible through the financial support of the National Social Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 22&ZD325 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 72074173.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Shiting Fu

  2. Center for Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Tingting Jiang

Authors
  1. Shiting Fu
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  2. Tingting Jiang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tingting Jiang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. iSchool Organization, Berlin, Germany

    Isaac Sserwanga

  2. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Anne Goulding

  3. University of Missouri, Chicago, IL, USA

    Heather Moulaison-Sandy

  4. University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Jia Tina Du

  5. University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    António Lucas Soares

  6. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Viviane Hessami

  7. University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, USA

    Rebecca D. Frank

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Fu, S., Jiang, T. (2023). Motivations, Purposes, and Means of Creating Information Cocoons Intentionally for Oneself: Looking on the Bright Side. In: Sserwanga, I., et al. Information for a Better World: Normality, Virtuality, Physicality, Inclusivity. iConference 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13972. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28032-0_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28032-0_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-28031-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-28032-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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