Lateral Thinking Gone VR: Enabling Geospatial and Topical Insights in VR

The visualization is presented as a directed 3D network of channels and groups showing cross-references between entities and their weight. The network is laid out on a 3D map of the country, with the Alps in the south and the North and Baltic Seas to the north, alongside major German cities, including the capital Berlin. This map demonstrates the push and pull between geospatial and topical proximity that affects connections between groups (colored blue by default, where anyone can post) and channels (colored pink by default, where only admins can post). The present work creates an opportunity for users to enhance their comprehension of the Querdenken movement in an immersive environment. Additionally, the same data is laid out as a 3D network. Brush-and-link was implemented to select a node in one visualization and have it highlighted in the other. Clicking on a node with the left hand displays the node ID and the number of messages. Clicking on it with the right hand adds a new color coding, where all nodes are colored based on their cosine similarity value with the selected node along a topical vector (Information distribution and advertisement, conspiracy theories, mobilization, medical discussion, political discussion…). A detailed introduction to the data is provided elsewhere [1].

[1] K. Buehling and A. Heft, “Pandemic Protesters on Telegram: How Platform Affordances and Information Ecosystems Shape Digital Counterpublics,” Soc. Media Soc., vol. 9, no. 3, Jul. 2023.