Seering, Joseph, et al. "The social roles of bots: evaluating impact of bots on discussions in online communities." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2.CSCW (2018): 1-29.

This paper explores the role of bots within the social ecosystem of audience participation platforms, specifically Twitch, using Structural Role Theory. A large-scale analysis reveals that bots, designed by users to perform automated tasks, communicate more frequently than human users. The study categorizes the roles of bots based on their functionalities and examines their variation across different Twitch communities, as well as the interaction between bots and users. The findings suggest opportunities for redefining and redesigning bots as social actors that contribute to the growth and evolution of online communities.