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ERIC Number: EJ1380411
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Jan
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1134-3478
EISSN: EISSN-1988-3293
(Un)Founded Fear towards the Algorithm: YouTube Recommendations and Polarisation
García-Marín, Javier; Serrano-Contreras, Ignacio-Jesús
Comunicar: Media Education Research Journal, v31 n74 p57-66 Jan 2023
Social media have established a new way of communicating and understanding social relationships. At the same time, there are downsides, especially, their use of algorithms that have been built and developed under their umbrella and their potential to alter public opinion. This paper tries to analyse the YouTube recommendation system from the perspectives of reverse engineering and semantic mining. The first result is that, contrary to expectations, the issues do not tend to be extreme from the point of view of polarisation in all cases. Next, and through the study of the selected themes, the results do not offer a clear answer to the proposed hypotheses, since, as has been shown in similar works, the factors that shape the recommendation system are very diverse. In fact, results show that polarising content does not behave in the same way for all the topics analysed, which may indicate the existence of moderators --or corporate actions-- that alter the relationship between the variables. Another contribution is the confirmation that we are dealing with non-linear, but potentially systematic, processes. Nevertheless, the present work opens the door to further academic research on the topic to clarify the unknowns about the role of these algorithms in our societies.
Grupo Comunicar Ediciones. Marina 8, Atico B - 21001 Huelva, Spain. Tel: 34-959-248480; e-mail: info@grupocomunicar.com; Web site: https://www.revistacomunicar.com/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A