What Makes a Climate Change Denier Popular? Exploring Networked Social Influence in a Disinformation Spreader Group

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2024-01-03

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2824

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This study examines the networked social influence within a climate change deniers' network. Focusing on social-mediated information-sharing networks, the research addresses two key questions: 1) who are the top influencers within the climate change denial community? And 2) what mechanisms contribute to the levels of influence among deniers? Using a machine-learning-based algorithm, the study quantifies levels of social influence for all members of a climate change denial network over a decade. The findings reveal that a core group of deniers maintains significant influence by spreading disinformation related to social and economic consequences of environmental policies, attacking opposition, and questioning climate change science. Among the four types of deniers, conservative media outlets have the most influence.

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Social Media Influencers and Influencing, climate change denial, disinformation networks, machine learning, networked social influence

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9 pages

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Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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