Social Media and the Banality of (Online) Crowds (11/22)

Question 1

What is the best-selling book that provides a backdrop to this article?

Answer 1

The wisdom of crowds

Question 2

The article contrasts our experience with two categories of “online crowds/” What are they?

Answer 2

where crowds are demonstrably less “intelligent” than the smartest people in them—
or perhaps when crowds are less intelligent than anyone in them.

Question 3

The author gives three reasons why he is averse to assign any inherent value to groups.
What are they?

Answer 3

Social dominace, intergroup conflict and social discord

Question 4

James Surowiecki holds that there are three necessary conditions for wise crowds. List
them

Answer 4

Diversity, independence, particular kind of decentralization

Question 5

What does the author of the article say about the three necessary conditions for wise
crowds/groups?

Answer 5

in the case of social media
necessary condition
1) is rarely obtains, and condition
2) is frequently absent.
Thus, it is only to the
extent that Surowiecki is
allowed to cherry-pick his
crowds that he will be
able to identify confirming instances of his claim

Question 6

What does convergence theory have to say about the behavior of crowds over time?

Answer 6

Over time groups will converge into conditions of similarity and differences will demenish

Question 6

List two twentieth-century scholars who held that crowds tend to be less rational
intellectual than their smartest members.

Answer 6

Ellias Canetti, Gustave Le Bon

Question 7

The author discusses one common feature of all crowds. What is it?

Answer 7

common focous

Question 8

he author lists three debilitating features of crowds. What are they?

Answer 8

singularity of focus, self selection,
The author lists three debilitating features of crowds. What are they?
idiological bond

Question 9

What feature of crowds seems to explain crowd’s willingness to accept disinformation, fake
Crowds seem to face any challenge to their singular focus with reservation,
news, unsupported claims, conspiracies, etc.?

Answer 9

Crowds seem to face any challenge to their singular focus with reservation, if not outright rejection

Question 10

What is the thesis that the author labels naÔve crowd psychology?

Answer 10

That crowds naturally decay into herds

Question 11

What is the term used to describe the phenomenon where wiki contributors try to inject self-serving, malicious, defamatory disinformation into a record or narrative?

Answer 11

Edit war

Question 12

According to the author, what do wikis excel at?

Answer 12

dates, quantities, names, and places—information that is incontestable and uncontroversial

Question 13

The article reports ample evidence for three dark, anti-social features of online crowds: List
them

Answer 13

Untrustworthy, abusive and easily manipulated