Aram Zucker-Scharff

“

I’ve been using Twitter for eight years, but I’ve never seen behavior quite like this. This swarming behavior is so prevalent, it got a new nickname — “sea lioning,” inspired by David Malki’s Wondermark comic.

I wanted to understand #Gamergate, how its proponents and critics behaved and the composition of both audiences.

So I wrote a little Python script with the Twython wrapper for the Twitter streaming API, and started capturing every single tweet that mentioned the #Gamergate and #NotYourShield hashtags.

”

– 72 Hours of Gamergate.

“

There is not one but several “cultures of the click.”

Take the example of the gap between what journalists say about web metrics and what they do when they check their own traffic numbers. I find that journalists are particularly likely to have conflicted reactions to metrics when working for publications with high editorial ambitions facing financial instability. In this case, writers criticize the chase for clicks, but also understand online success as a signal of professional value.

”

– When it comes to chasing clicks, journalists say one thing but feel pressure to do another.