Online Information Ripples – A Conceptual Model for Analyzing Information Dissemination Patterns in Social media

Abstract: Today we are sharing and recommending content and information with our online social networks and with that, generating social traffic that does not use search engines to find content. Potentially information dissemination in social media can be very efficient and the information can reach a great number of people in a very short period of time. However, little is known about the information dissemination patterns in social media and how our online information behavior may have changed. In this article we propose the conceptual model of online information ripples as a metaphor for information dissemination in social media and present how the metaphor could benefit research about online information dissemination and information behavior. The benefit of studying information dissemination as ripples and waves in social media is that it opens new possibilities to new discoveries using methods previously not used in information science