Emotions trump facts: The role of emotions in on social media: A literature review

Abstract

Emotions are an inseparable part of how people use social media. While a more cognitive view on social media has initially dominated the research looking into areas such as knowledge sharing, the topic of emotions and their role on social media is gaining increasing interest. As is typical to an emerging field, there is no synthesized view on what has been discovered so far and – more importantly – what has not been. This paper provides an overview of research regarding expressing emotions on social media and their impact, and makes recommendations for future research in the area. Considering differentiated emotion instead of measuring positive or negative sentiment, drawing from theories on emotion, and distinguishing between sentiment and opinion could provide valuable insights in the field.