Aragón P, Gómez V, Kaltenbrunner A. Measuring Platform Effects in Digital Democracy. The Internet, Policy & Politics Conference

Online discussions are the essence of many social platforms on the Internet. Conversations in online forums are traditionally presented in a hierarchical structure. In contrast, online social networking services usually show discussions linearly by sorting messages in chronological order. How discussion networks are a ected by choosing a specific view has never been investigated in the literature. In this article we present an analysis of the discussion threads in Meneame, the most popular Spanish social news platform. In January 2015, this site turned the original linear conversation view into a hierarchical one. Our ndings prove that the new interface promoted new discussion network structures. In particular, the hierarchical view increased deliberation and reciprocity based on the rhizomatic structure of discussions

Keywords: Digital democracy, Online deliberation, Online discussion, Human-Computer Interfaces, Conversation view

Best Paper Award at The Internet, Policy & Politics Conference, University of Oxford