Emotions in Wikipedia: the role of intended negative events in the expression of sadness and anger in online peer production
ABSTRACTThe online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has strict guidelines for ensuring the objectivity of its content and unbiased language of its articles. Wikipedia also provides articles on negative even...
Emotional Content in Wikipedia Articles on Negative Man-Made and Nature-Made Events
Wikipedia emphasizes the objectivity of content. Yet, Wikipedia articles also deal with negative events that potentially elicit intense emotions. Undesirable outcomes (e.g., earthquakes) are known to elicit sadness, while undesirable outcomes caused by others’ actions (e.g., terrorist attacks) are known to elicit anger. Internet users’ emotional responses are likely to end up in Wikipedia articles on those events as characteristics of Internet users spill over to Wikipedia articles. Therefore, we expected that Wikipedia articles on terrorist attacks contain more anger-related and less sadness-related content than articles on earthquakes. We analyzed newly created Wikipedia articles about t…