M Hilbert
Biographic Data
| ID | 23780 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Hilbert |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Hilbert |
| SIGNATURE | HILBERT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0809-6361 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 151 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
BigTech @Minors: Social media algorithms have actionable knowledge about child users and at-risk teens
Lean-back and lean-forward online behaviors: The role of emotions in passive versus proactive information diffusion of social media content
One of the main drivers of social media's influence is the easy way of generating information cascades via forwarding messages. Two basic modes of reposting information consist in sharing it without changes (lean-back) or adding or modifying content on top of the original message (lean-forward). In this work, we study those two modes of online information sharing. Using data from six cases extracted from Twitter, where retweets make up most of th…
Breaking the Structural Reinforcement: An Agent-Based Model on Cultural Consumption and Social Relations
Theorists since Marx, Bourdieu, and DiMaggio have asked how individual choices on cultural preference interact with collective social network structure. The rise of social media in today’s communication landscape motivates us to take a closer look at the involved dynamics. We designed an agent-based model to explore how different behavioral principles for cultural choice and communicative affiliation affect (1) collective consumption patterns, (2…
Worlds of Agents: Prospects of Agent-Based Modeling for Communication Research
Agent-based computational models create virtual laboratories in which to formalize and simulate dynamic, multi-level theories of communication. They allow the systematic development of thought experiments, and they improve our understanding of the generative mechanisms that underlie patterns observed in empirical data. Simulation models help explore hypothetical and unprecedented scenarios, serving as powerful hypothesis generators for future the…
Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization
This study examines algorithm effects on user opinion, utilizing a real-world recommender algorithm of a highly popular video-sharing platform, YouTube. We experimentally manipulate user search/watch history by our custom programming. A controlled laboratory experiment is then conducted to examine whether exposure to algorithmically recommended content reinforces and polarizes political opinions. Results suggest that political self-reinforcement,…
Large-Scale Communication is More Complex and Unpredictable with Automated Bots
Automated communication bots follow deterministic local rules that either respond to programmed instructions or learned patterns. On the microlevel, their automated and reactive behavior makes certain parts of the communication dynamic more predictable. Studying communicative turns in the editing history of Wikipedia, we find that on the macrolevel, the overall emergent communication process becomes both more complex and less predictable. The inc…
Behavioral Experiments With Social Algorithms: An Information Theoretic Approach to Input–Output Conversions
While traditional computer-mediated communication happened through transparent, passive, and neutral channels, today’s communication channels are obscure, proactive, and distorted. Social algorithms, guided by a socio-technological codependency, often bias communication, usually in pursuit of some third-party goal of commercial or political nature. We propose a method to derive several summary measures to tests for transformational accuracy when …
Communicating with Algorithms: A Transfer Entropy Analysis of Emotions-based Escapes from Online Echo Chambers
Online algorithms have received much blame for polarizing emotions during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We use transfer entropy to measure directed information flows from human emotions to YouTube’s video recommendation engine, and back, from recommended videos to users’ emotions. We find that algorithmic recommendations communicate a statistically significant amount of positive and negative affect to humans. Joy is prevalent in emotional …
The Complementary Importance of Static Structure and Temporal Dynamics in Teamwork Communication
Communicative exchanges consist of both static and dynamic structures that can be used for prediction. Temporal dynamics are often neglected in communication studies. We used Shannon's mathematical theory of communication to examine 1,594,690 contributions from 206,184 contributors to 38 open online collaborations. We found that about three-fourths of the total predictability of turn-taking stemmed from participation frequencies (static variance)…
Evolution of what? A network approach for the detection of evolutionary forces
One Step, Two Step, Network Step? Complementary Perspectives on Communication Flows in Twittered Citizen Protests
The article analyzes the nature of communication flows during social conflicts via the digital platform Twitter. We gathered over 150,000 tweets from citizen protests for nine environmental social movements in Chile and used a mixed methods approach to show that long-standing paradigms for social mobilization and participation are neither replicated nor replaced but reshaped. In digital platforms, long-standing communication theories, like the 19…
Big Data: Issues for an International Political Sociology of Data Practices: Table 1
The claim that big data can revolutionize strategy and governance in the context of international relations is increasingly hard to ignore. Scholars of international political sociology have mainly discussed this development through the themes of security and surveillance. The aim of this paper is to outline a research agenda that can be used to raise a broader set of sociological and practice-oriented questions about the increasing datafication …
What Is the Content of the World's Technologically Mediated Information and Communication Capacity: How Much Text, Image, Audio, and Video
This article asks whether the global process of digitization has led to noteworthy changes in the shares of the amount of text, images, audio, and video in worldwide technologically stored and communicated information content. We empirically quantify the amount of information that is globally broadcast, telecommunicated, and stored (1986–2007) and assess the evolution of the respective content shares. Somewhat unexpectedly, it turns out that the …
Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human decision making
A single coherent framework is proposed to synthesize long-standing research on 8 seemingly unrelated cognitive decision-making biases. During the past 6 decades, hundreds of empirical studies have resulted in a variety of rules of thumb that specify how humans systematically deviate from what is normatively expected from their decisions. Several complementary generative mechanisms have been proposed to explain those cognitive biases. Here it is …
The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information
An inventory of the world’s technological capacity from 1986 to 2007 reveals the evolution from analog to digital technologies.
Supplemental Material for Toward a Synthesis of Cognitive Biases: How Noisy Information Processing Can Bias Human Decision Making
Digital gender divide or technologically empowered women in developing countries? A typical case of lies, damned lies, and statistics
Information Societies or “ICT Equipment Societies?” Measuring the Digital Information-Processing Capacity of a Society in Bits and Bytes
The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its c…
The Maturing Concept of E-Democracy: From E-Voting and Online Consultations to Democratic Value Out of Jumbled Online Chatter
Early literature on e-democracy was dominated by euphoric claims about the benefits of e-voting (digital direct democracy) or continuous online citizen consultations (digital representative democracy). High expectations have gradually been replaced with more genuine approaches that aim to break with the dichotomy of traditional notions of direct and representative democracy. The ensuing question relates to the adequate design of information and c…
When is Cheap, Cheap Enough to Bridge the Digital Divide? Modeling Income Related Structural Challenges of Technology Diffusion in Latin America
Comment on the Financing Aspect of the Information Soceity for Developing Countries
Digital gender divide or technologically empowered women in developing countries? A typical case of lies, damned lies, and statistics
One Step, Two Step, Network Step? Complementary Perspectives on Communication Flows in Twittered Citizen Protests
The article analyzes the nature of communication flows during social conflicts via the digital platform Twitter. We gathered over 150,000 tweets from citizen protests for nine environmental social movements in Chile and used a mixed methods approach to show that long-standing paradigms for social mobilization and participation are neither replicated nor replaced but reshaped. In digital platforms, long-standing communication theories, like the 19…
Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human decision making
A single coherent framework is proposed to synthesize long-standing research on 8 seemingly unrelated cognitive decision-making biases. During the past 6 decades, hundreds of empirical studies have resulted in a variety of rules of thumb that specify how humans systematically deviate from what is normatively expected from their decisions. Several complementary generative mechanisms have been proposed to explain those cognitive biases. Here it is …
Big Data: Issues for an International Political Sociology of Data Practices: Table 1
The claim that big data can revolutionize strategy and governance in the context of international relations is increasingly hard to ignore. Scholars of international political sociology have mainly discussed this development through the themes of security and surveillance. The aim of this paper is to outline a research agenda that can be used to raise a broader set of sociological and practice-oriented questions about the increasing datafication …
When is Cheap, Cheap Enough to Bridge the Digital Divide? Modeling Income Related Structural Challenges of Technology Diffusion in Latin America
The Maturing Concept of E-Democracy: From E-Voting and Online Consultations to Democratic Value Out of Jumbled Online Chatter
Early literature on e-democracy was dominated by euphoric claims about the benefits of e-voting (digital direct democracy) or continuous online citizen consultations (digital representative democracy). High expectations have gradually been replaced with more genuine approaches that aim to break with the dichotomy of traditional notions of direct and representative democracy. The ensuing question relates to the adequate design of information and c…
Communicating with Algorithms: A Transfer Entropy Analysis of Emotions-based Escapes from Online Echo Chambers
Online algorithms have received much blame for polarizing emotions during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We use transfer entropy to measure directed information flows from human emotions to YouTube’s video recommendation engine, and back, from recommended videos to users’ emotions. We find that algorithmic recommendations communicate a statistically significant amount of positive and negative affect to humans. Joy is prevalent in emotional …
What Is the Content of the World's Technologically Mediated Information and Communication Capacity: How Much Text, Image, Audio, and Video
This article asks whether the global process of digitization has led to noteworthy changes in the shares of the amount of text, images, audio, and video in worldwide technologically stored and communicated information content. We empirically quantify the amount of information that is globally broadcast, telecommunicated, and stored (1986–2007) and assess the evolution of the respective content shares. Somewhat unexpectedly, it turns out that the …
Worlds of Agents: Prospects of Agent-Based Modeling for Communication Research
Agent-based computational models create virtual laboratories in which to formalize and simulate dynamic, multi-level theories of communication. They allow the systematic development of thought experiments, and they improve our understanding of the generative mechanisms that underlie patterns observed in empirical data. Simulation models help explore hypothetical and unprecedented scenarios, serving as powerful hypothesis generators for future the…
Behavioral Experiments With Social Algorithms: An Information Theoretic Approach to Input–Output Conversions
While traditional computer-mediated communication happened through transparent, passive, and neutral channels, today’s communication channels are obscure, proactive, and distorted. Social algorithms, guided by a socio-technological codependency, often bias communication, usually in pursuit of some third-party goal of commercial or political nature. We propose a method to derive several summary measures to tests for transformational accuracy when …
The Complementary Importance of Static Structure and Temporal Dynamics in Teamwork Communication
Communicative exchanges consist of both static and dynamic structures that can be used for prediction. Temporal dynamics are often neglected in communication studies. We used Shannon's mathematical theory of communication to examine 1,594,690 contributions from 206,184 contributors to 38 open online collaborations. We found that about three-fourths of the total predictability of turn-taking stemmed from participation frequencies (static variance)…
Information Societies or “ICT Equipment Societies?” Measuring the Digital Information-Processing Capacity of a Society in Bits and Bytes
The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its c…
Comment on the Financing Aspect of the Information Soceity for Developing Countries
The Maturing Concept of E-Democracy: From E-Voting and Online Consultations to Democratic Value Out of Jumbled Online Chatter
Early literature on e-democracy was dominated by euphoric claims about the benefits of e-voting (digital direct democracy) or continuous online citizen consultations (digital representative democracy). High expectations have gradually been replaced with more genuine approaches that aim to break with the dichotomy of traditional notions of direct and representative democracy. The ensuing question relates to the adequate design of information and c…
When is Cheap, Cheap Enough to Bridge the Digital Divide? Modeling Income Related Structural Challenges of Technology Diffusion in Latin America
Information Societies or “ICT Equipment Societies?” Measuring the Digital Information-Processing Capacity of a Society in Bits and Bytes
The digital divide is conventionally measured in terms of information and communication technology (ICT) equipment diffusion, which comes down to counting the number of computers or phones, among other devices. This article fine-tunes these approximations by estimating the amount of digital information that is stored, communicated, and computed by these devices. The installed stock of ICT equipment in the consumer segment is multiplied with its c…
The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information
An inventory of the world’s technological capacity from 1986 to 2007 reveals the evolution from analog to digital technologies.
Supplemental Material for Toward a Synthesis of Cognitive Biases: How Noisy Information Processing Can Bias Human Decision Making
Digital gender divide or technologically empowered women in developing countries? A typical case of lies, damned lies, and statistics
Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human decision making
A single coherent framework is proposed to synthesize long-standing research on 8 seemingly unrelated cognitive decision-making biases. During the past 6 decades, hundreds of empirical studies have resulted in a variety of rules of thumb that specify how humans systematically deviate from what is normatively expected from their decisions. Several complementary generative mechanisms have been proposed to explain those cognitive biases. Here it is …
What Is the Content of the World's Technologically Mediated Information and Communication Capacity: How Much Text, Image, Audio, and Video
This article asks whether the global process of digitization has led to noteworthy changes in the shares of the amount of text, images, audio, and video in worldwide technologically stored and communicated information content. We empirically quantify the amount of information that is globally broadcast, telecommunicated, and stored (1986–2007) and assess the evolution of the respective content shares. Somewhat unexpectedly, it turns out that the …
Evolution of what? A network approach for the detection of evolutionary forces
One Step, Two Step, Network Step? Complementary Perspectives on Communication Flows in Twittered Citizen Protests
The article analyzes the nature of communication flows during social conflicts via the digital platform Twitter. We gathered over 150,000 tweets from citizen protests for nine environmental social movements in Chile and used a mixed methods approach to show that long-standing paradigms for social mobilization and participation are neither replicated nor replaced but reshaped. In digital platforms, long-standing communication theories, like the 19…
Big Data: Issues for an International Political Sociology of Data Practices: Table 1
The claim that big data can revolutionize strategy and governance in the context of international relations is increasingly hard to ignore. Scholars of international political sociology have mainly discussed this development through the themes of security and surveillance. The aim of this paper is to outline a research agenda that can be used to raise a broader set of sociological and practice-oriented questions about the increasing datafication …
Communicating with Algorithms: A Transfer Entropy Analysis of Emotions-based Escapes from Online Echo Chambers
Online algorithms have received much blame for polarizing emotions during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We use transfer entropy to measure directed information flows from human emotions to YouTube’s video recommendation engine, and back, from recommended videos to users’ emotions. We find that algorithmic recommendations communicate a statistically significant amount of positive and negative affect to humans. Joy is prevalent in emotional …
The Complementary Importance of Static Structure and Temporal Dynamics in Teamwork Communication
Communicative exchanges consist of both static and dynamic structures that can be used for prediction. Temporal dynamics are often neglected in communication studies. We used Shannon's mathematical theory of communication to examine 1,594,690 contributions from 206,184 contributors to 38 open online collaborations. We found that about three-fourths of the total predictability of turn-taking stemmed from participation frequencies (static variance)…
Behavioral Experiments With Social Algorithms: An Information Theoretic Approach to Input–Output Conversions
While traditional computer-mediated communication happened through transparent, passive, and neutral channels, today’s communication channels are obscure, proactive, and distorted. Social algorithms, guided by a socio-technological codependency, often bias communication, usually in pursuit of some third-party goal of commercial or political nature. We propose a method to derive several summary measures to tests for transformational accuracy when …
Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization
This study examines algorithm effects on user opinion, utilizing a real-world recommender algorithm of a highly popular video-sharing platform, YouTube. We experimentally manipulate user search/watch history by our custom programming. A controlled laboratory experiment is then conducted to examine whether exposure to algorithmically recommended content reinforces and polarizes political opinions. Results suggest that political self-reinforcement,…
Large-Scale Communication is More Complex and Unpredictable with Automated Bots
Automated communication bots follow deterministic local rules that either respond to programmed instructions or learned patterns. On the microlevel, their automated and reactive behavior makes certain parts of the communication dynamic more predictable. Studying communicative turns in the editing history of Wikipedia, we find that on the macrolevel, the overall emergent communication process becomes both more complex and less predictable. The inc…
Worlds of Agents: Prospects of Agent-Based Modeling for Communication Research
Agent-based computational models create virtual laboratories in which to formalize and simulate dynamic, multi-level theories of communication. They allow the systematic development of thought experiments, and they improve our understanding of the generative mechanisms that underlie patterns observed in empirical data. Simulation models help explore hypothetical and unprecedented scenarios, serving as powerful hypothesis generators for future the…
Breaking the Structural Reinforcement: An Agent-Based Model on Cultural Consumption and Social Relations
Theorists since Marx, Bourdieu, and DiMaggio have asked how individual choices on cultural preference interact with collective social network structure. The rise of social media in today’s communication landscape motivates us to take a closer look at the involved dynamics. We designed an agent-based model to explore how different behavioral principles for cultural choice and communicative affiliation affect (1) collective consumption patterns, (2…
Lean-back and lean-forward online behaviors: The role of emotions in passive versus proactive information diffusion of social media content
One of the main drivers of social media's influence is the easy way of generating information cascades via forwarding messages. Two basic modes of reposting information consist in sharing it without changes (lean-back) or adding or modifying content on top of the original message (lean-forward). In this work, we study those two modes of online information sharing. Using data from six cases extracted from Twitter, where retweets make up most of th…
BigTech @Minors: Social media algorithms have actionable knowledge about child users and at-risk teens
Computer Science (17 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Social media (6 works) · Social Media and Politics (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works)