Examining how the structure of the reddit forum shapes knowledge transfer of astrology content

The virality of astrological content has led to the formation of a Beginner Astrology Reddit Forum as an online learning space. The pages of this forum are created and maintained by volunteer moderators with 21,000 members. The purpose of this project is to examine how the structure of the Reddit forum shapes how astrological knowledge is transferred. 

The Problem

As astrology content and individual spiritual practices, more broadly, become more viral, this prompts questions around how such content impacts real-world decisions. By focusing on the Beginner Astrology Reddit Forum, we are able to see how the transfer of knowledge is impacted by the structure of Reddit and how that shapes the user’s offline decisions. 

This project further illustrates how users negotiate with platforms by creating innovative use cases of technology. In the case of the Beginner Astrology Reddit Forum, I sought to uncover the ways in which the forum creates an online learning environment.

Study Plan:

I recruited participants and administered a survey that acquired insights about the user’s practice with astrology. This also gathered data on what methods were used by the user to obtain astrological knowledge. 

To better contextualize the survey data, I also conducted a content analysis on user generated content. 20 reddit posts and the associated comments were used for content analysis. Additionally, I went through the community guidelines and ‘start here’ tab to get a better understanding on how the platform’s structure shapes learning on Reddit. 

Team

• 1 UX Researcher

My Role

• UX Researcher

• Data Analyst

Survey

I designed and administered surveys to users who are actively on the Beginner Astrology Reddit Forum. The survey gained data on the following categories:

1. Demographics (i.e. age, gender, # of years practicing, etc.)

2. Social Media Astrology vs Reddit

3. In-Depth Astrology Sources 

4. Use of Astrology 

Next Steps

The goal of this study was to understand how knowledge transfer is shaped by Reddit's platform and how this impacts user’s offline decisions. I found that moderators and guidelines play a key role in fostering a learning environment while user interaction and resources provided within the forum were key sources of information for users. 

Next steps and general adjustments would be to conduct in-depth interviews to understand how reddit and other online resources shape the learning process. Overall, this was a key project for me as a researcher since it gave me a lot of insight into the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of methods.

Timeline

• 4 weeks

User-Generated Content Analysis

I developed a coding scheme to qualitatively analyze the discourse happening within the forum.

The coding scheme was applied to the user-generated content or reddit posts as well as the comments that were under each post. This gathered insights on how the forum fosters a learning environment. 

Forum Walk-Through

To better triangulate or contextualize the data from the survey and user-generated content analysis, I completed a walkthrough of the Beginner Astrology Reddit Forum. This helped with understanding how the structure of the forum which included community guidelines, auto-moderators, and human moderates plays a large role in shaping the online learning process.

Challenges

A Quick Timeline: Survey Recruiting Issues

The study required a holistic approach to best understand how the structure of Reddit facilitates an online learning environment and how this transfer of knowledge impacts offline activities. One of the aspects the survey attempts to cover is the impact on offline activities. The response revealed great insight regarding how users implemented astrology into their everyday lives, however, the process of recruiting individuals to complete the survey had produced an underwhelming response rate. 

Follow-Up Interviews to Strengthen Results 

Due to the underwhelming response rate, I would have adjusted the study to conduct interviews first and then asked participants to fill out the survey to help quantify some of the results. This would also have given me the opportunity to go in-depth with some of their responses which was less possible with the quick turn-around for the project.