When the internet first ___1___, some scholars of democracy and civil society thought that online discussions could create what they called a “___2___”: an ongoing town hall without bricks and mortar. But the internet may not be as democratic as they'd imagined, according to a study in the journal Communication Research. ["Civil Society and Online Political Discourse: The Network Structure of Unrestricted Discussions"]

Researcher Itai Himelboim gathered eight million messages posted to 35 political and philosophical newsgroups—like —over a six-year period. And he analyzed the connections among the messages. Turns out that 50 percent of all replies were ___3___ just 2 percent of people who started threads, and who thus came to control the discussion. And the larger the newsgroup, the more ___4___ this effect became.

But these newsgroup dominators weren't posting much original content. Sixty percent of their posts were just content ___5___ traditional news sources like the New York Times. Which is good news for the news business, the author says. Because it means people still want someone else to search out information and deliver it. After all, isn't that one reason why you listen to this podcast?
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
got kicking conversational democracy directed at polarized lifted from
网络刚出现如火如荼的势头，部分民主派及民间团体人士就认为网络讨论将营造出所谓的“言论民主”： 虚拟市政办公厅。但《传播研究》上的一篇研究报告表明，事实上，网络并没有他们想象中那么民主。 伊泰•希梅尔博耗费6年时间，从35个政府、哲学新闻讨论小组（如）收集了八百万份信息，并且分析了这些信息的内在联系。结果发现，50%信息都是回复给其中2%的人的，而这2%，就是高人气的讨论主导者。讨论组规模越大，主导现象就越明显。 但是，这些人气王发布的信息很多都不是原创观点，其中60%的信息是转载自《纽约时报》等传统新闻线索。报告作者认为这对新闻界来说不失为一件好事，因为这表明还是人们还是希望有人能发现新闻、传播新闻的。不然，你也不会来听科学60秒了吧~