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Konstantinos Zougris

University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu Assistant Professor of Sociology Konstantinos Zougris published the article “Polarizing Topics in Social Media: News Site Readers Comments on Trayvon Martin Controversy” in the peer-reviewed journal Communication and Information Technologies Annual: [New] Media Cultures Studies in Media and Communications, together with Gabe Ignatow and Nicholas Evangelopoulos.

The authors applied topic sentiment analysis—text analysis that estimates the polarity of sentiments—to studying public opinion expressed in social media by comparing reactions to the spring 2012 Trayvon Martin controversy by commenters on the Huffington Post and Daily Caller. The study found that high-profile commenters were more polarizing than other news personalities and topics, providing partial validation for the use of topic sentiment analysis to online opinion.

More about Konstantinos Zougris

Zougris’ teaching focuses on research methods and techniques in social sciences, social stratification, social movements and economic sociology. He has published several peer-reviewed journal articles in the fields of text analytics, research methods, economic sociology, social inequality and socioeconomic development. He is currently working on several research projects associated with the fields of sociology of work, sociology of knowledge and digital sociology.

—By Julie Funasaki Yuen

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