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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hill, Mark J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01642
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author Hill, Mark J.
author_facet Hill, Mark J.
contents This paper examines how emotional responses to football matches influence online discourse across digital spaces on Reddit. By analysing millions of posts from dozens of subreddits, it demonstrates that real-world events trigger sentiment shifts that move across communities. It shows that negative sentiment correlates with problematic language; match outcomes directly influence sentiment and posting habits; sentiment can transfer to unrelated communities; and offers insights into the content of this shifting discourse. These findings reveal how digital spaces function not as isolated environments, but as interconnected emotional ecosystems vulnerable to cross-domain contagion triggered by real-world events, contributing to our understanding of the propagation of online toxicity. While football is used as a case-study to computationally measure affective causes and movements, these patterns have implications for understanding online communities broadly.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_01642
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Catching Stray Balls: Football, fandom, and the impact on digital discourse
Hill, Mark J.
Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
This paper examines how emotional responses to football matches influence online discourse across digital spaces on Reddit. By analysing millions of posts from dozens of subreddits, it demonstrates that real-world events trigger sentiment shifts that move across communities. It shows that negative sentiment correlates with problematic language; match outcomes directly influence sentiment and posting habits; sentiment can transfer to unrelated communities; and offers insights into the content of this shifting discourse. These findings reveal how digital spaces function not as isolated environments, but as interconnected emotional ecosystems vulnerable to cross-domain contagion triggered by real-world events, contributing to our understanding of the propagation of online toxicity. While football is used as a case-study to computationally measure affective causes and movements, these patterns have implications for understanding online communities broadly.
title Catching Stray Balls: Football, fandom, and the impact on digital discourse
topic Social and Information Networks
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01642