More Analysis - Subreddit's Keyword Density with Python and PRAW

This is a follow-up to the post Analysing Subreddit's Keyword Concentration with Python and PRAW.

Reddit is an amazing site with all sorts of people coming together to discuss and meme about things.

Unlike the echo chamber of Facebook, YouTube and especially Tik Tok, where feed-based mechanics push messages to you, the old-school forum setting like Reddit allows freedom of choice and thought - depending on which subreddit you subscribe.

Echo chambers, obviously, exist on Reddit and the entire internet. However, unlike mainstream social media, it's your choice to join subreddits. If you subscribe to both /r/Conservative and /r/politics, you're essentially diversifying yourself away from the algorithm-imposed thought bubble. Or you can just join /r/moderatepolitics.

In this post, I'll run through some analysis of some echo chambers.

 

Let's talk CHINA

China is a fun topic and is a high-speed ticket to instant demonetization on YouTube. Hopefully, it's not the case for Adsense...

I discovered /r/Sino recently. It's a safe haven for pro-China Redditors as most of Reddit is occupied by left-leaning, anti-communist individuals.

Note that this analysis was done during the PRC national day and mid-autumn festival.

It's interesting to see "fuck trump" in the 2-word phrases while it's interesting to note the lack of "COVID" or "coronavirus" in the conversation. FYI this analysis was done just before Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19.

While any /r/{country} subreddits will certainly be an echo chamber of that particular country, note that there is a /r/China subreddit that has vastly different content and rules vs /r/Sino.

 

Fighting Racism with More Racism

Last year, /r/BlackPeopleTwitter started requiring users to prove their "Black"-ness to... I don't know. Protect the purity of their thought? Isn't that the concept of White Supremacy or Aryan Master race?

Though I'm in no position to say what's right or wrong, it's quite natural for minorities to push the concept of their identity (i.e. race) further in order to protect it, therefore leading to more identity-ism i.e. racism on both sides.

Enough of the side talk. Let's look at what /r/BlackPeopleTwitter talks about.

The words centre around the recent conversation of BLM and the current political climate, obviously. I suspect this will be very different if analysed at a different time due to how fluid the whole situation is at the time of analysis.

 

Let's Burst the Bubble

There are a lot of echo chambers on Reddit and I can do this analysis till the end of time.

However, I want to end the analysis with a subreddit that specifically welcomes people to ask difficult questions. It's one of those I enjoy scrolling through during my boring moments to trigger some ideas in my head.

That subreddit is /r/TooAfraidToAsk/. Please share with me if you have a similar subreddit that also welcomes diversity of thought or debates in general.

Currently, the subreddit is skewed by this thread, the Trump getting COVID news and the current political climate in general (much like the one above).

Interestingly, "echo chamber" is one of the top terms, which is a good way to end this analysis.

As always, feel free to reference the code in the previous post to do your own analysis.