Community membership effects on online reputation

This project analyzes how members of online platforms are evaluated by others members based on the variety of cultural group affiliations. While affiliation in multiple cultural groups is often rewarded with higher evaluations, active members of dissimilar communities rather get penalized. Therefore, online community members with multiple cultural interests stand out as cultural enthusiasts. As these multiple interests are diversified, however, members face difficulties in fitting in to the communities. Members of multiple communities with different audiences therefore are penalized as cultural misfits.

This research project uses large-scale Reddit participation data of 462 music-related subreddits (i.e. subcommunities) and approximately 750 thousand active redditors (i.e. Reddit members).