Discussions and Socialization

Forums
Social Networking

UofS
Social Computing
Presenter: Mayya Sharipova
 Outline

{ Forums
z Lurking
z System dynamics in mass interaction
z Hazing in online communities

{ Social networking
z Motives and uses of Facebook
z Social media
{ Forums Lurking- definition
z Lurking

{ One of the ‘silent majority’ in a electronic forum;

one who posts occasionally or not at all but is
known to read the group's postings regularly.

Nonnecke, B., & Preece, J. (2000). Lurker

demographics: Counting the silent. Proceedings
of CHI 2000. The Hague: ACM.
{ Forums Lurking- why care?
z Lurking

{ They are majority(90%)

{ Improvements in usability, design,
tools
{ Potential customers
{ Forums Research questions
z Lurking

1. How prevalent? (Health vs. Software)

2. No posting vs. minimal level of
posting
3. Lurking <?> number of forum
members
4. Lurking <?> traffic level
{ Forums Methodology
z Lurking

{ 109 DL (discussion lists- DL messages are

received as an email)
{ DL – subscription mechanism
{ Information can be accessed by querying DL
server
{ 3 month period
{ Forums Results (1)
z Lurking

1. How prevalent? (Health vs. Software)

{ Forums Results (2)
z Lurking

2. No posting vs. minimal level of posting

{ Forums Results (3)
z Lurking

3. Lurking <?> number of forum members

{ Forums Results (4)
z Lurking

4. Lurking <?>
traffic level

negative correlation
(Pearson-0.426)
{ Forums Discussion
z Lurking

{ Are lurkers free-riders? (any benefit from them)

{ How much traffic level is acceptable?
{ Forums System dynamics in mass
System
z
dynamics
interaction
{ Mass interaction can be understood in terms of
system dynamics

Quentin Jones & Gilad Ravid, Sheizaf Rafaeli

An Empirical Exploration of Mass Interaction

System Dynamics: Individual Information
Overload and Usenet Discourse

Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii International Conference on System

Sciences - 2002
{ Forums System dynamics ?
z System
dynamics

{ System dynamics is an approach to

understanding the behaviour of complex
systems over time.
{ Features: use of feedback loops and stocks and
flows. These elements help describe how even
seemingly simple systems display baffling
nonlinearity.
{ Forums Research hypotheses
z System
dynamics

As the overloading
of mass-
interaction
increases, users
will:

1. generate simpler responses

2. fail to respond
3. end active participation
{ Forums Methodology
z System
dynamics

{ 600 Usenet newsgroups

{ 2,652,552 messages collected over the 6-months
from 1st August 1999 to 29th February 2000
{ Algorithm to identify reply messages- containing
“Re…”, “>”,human reviewers
{ Algorithm to identify parent messages
{ Forums Results (1)
z System
dynamics

As the
overloading
of mass-
interaction
increases,
users will:

1. generate
simpler
responses

Zipf like curve

{ Forums Results (2)
z System
dynamics

As the Simpler messages are more

overloading likely to seed a new discussion;
of mass-
interaction are able to predict 63.57% of
cases
increases,
users will:

2. fail to
respond
{ Forums Results (3)
z System
dynamics

As the
overloading
of mass- % of posters who also posted
interaction to the next study month
increases,
users will:

3. end active
participati
on

Zipf like curve

{ Forums Discussion
z System
dynamics

{ Information overload has an observable impact

on mass interaction discourse dynamics
{ System dynamics approach can be used for
examining group-level usability
 Hazing as a Process of
{ Forums
z Hazing
Boundary Maintenance in an
Online Community

{ Hazing -subjecting potential group members to

degrading initiation rituals

Courtenay Honeycutt (2005)

Hazing as a Process of Boundary Maintenance in an
Online Community
{ Forums
z Hazing Boundary Maintenance

Transmitting Controlling access Threat/use of

cultural capital violence
{ Forums Background
z Hazing

{ The Case Study: The X-

Filesaholics- online message
board
{ 299 members with 40 members
posting regularly
{ Initiation ritual of granting couch
cushion
{ toothbrush/ice block welcoming
ritual
{ Forums Research question
z Hazing

{ How do the in-group members of the X-

Filesaholics discursively utilize the
toothbrush/ice block directive to maintain the
community's boundaries?
{ Forums Methogology
z Hazing

{ joining and welcoming threads of

approximately 300 individuals between January
18, 1998 and March 31, 2001 were collected
{ computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA)
techniques
{ data were searched for three key words :
clean, scrub, and toothbrush.
{ Forums Results
z Hazing
{ Forums Discussion
z Hazing

{ The X-Filesaholics demonstrate both a growing

self-awareness of themselves as a community
and understanding of their boundaries and how
they expect newcomers to behave before they
are allowed membership in the group.
{ They were engaging in hazing to protect the
online space and the cultural status quo.
{ They used threat or use of violence,
transmitting cultural values, and controlling
access to maintain their boundaries
{ SN
SNS- social networking sites
z Facebook Definition

Web-based services that allow individuals to:

{ construct public profile

{ articulate a list of other users with whom they

share a connection
{ view and traverse their list of connections and
those made by others within the system
{ SN SNS- social networking sites
z Facebook

July 2007:
{ SNS- 5 of the top 15 most visited sites
{ Facebook- 30 mil. users

{ MySpace – 100 mil. users

{ SN Motives and uses of
z Facebook
Facebook

Adam N. Joinson

‘Looking at’, ‘Looking up’ or ‘Keeping up with’

People? Motives and Uses of Facebook

CHI 2008 Proceedings · Online Social Networks April 5-10,

2008 · Florence, Italy
{ SN
Methodology
z Facebook

{ Exploratory stage- 137 Facebook users;

generated phrases how they used Facebook and
what they enjoyed
{ Identifying uses and gratifications- phrases
from 1-st stage were coded into 46 items which
were rated (Likert scale) by 241 Facebook users
{ SN
Results (1)
z Facebook

{ Exploratory
stage
{ SN
Results (2)
z Facebook

{ Identifying uses
and gratifications

Likert scale- max- 7 (most important)

 Results (3)
{ SN
z Facebook

Identifying uses and gratifications. Other factors:

{ Posting and viewing of photographs

{ Status updates
{ Meeting “like-minded” people
{ Social network surfing (of old friends)
{ Social investigation (new people)
{ Interesting content (applications/quizzes)
 Results (4)
{ SN
z Facebook

Predicting the use of Facebook

{ content gratification predicted the amount of time

spent on the site
{ the use of the site for social investigation, viewing
and posting photographs and status updates
predicted the frequency of visits
{ SN Social networking
z Social
media
Social media

Danah Boyd

"Social Media is Here to Stay... Now What?“

Microsoft Research Tech Fest, Redmond, 26 February 2009
{ SN Claims (1)
z Social
media
Network effects

{ Technology’s feature set is not a key to its

adoption and popularity
{ What important is network effect, whether this
is the place whether your friends hang out

{ Negative consequences - Friendster

{ Positive- Facebook
 Claims (2)
{ SN
z Social
What youth does in SN is
media different from what adults do
{ Teenagers- hang out place with friends (pre-
existing groups); decorating their profiles
{ Adults are not hanging out, they use SNS as for
their intended purposes as a social utility
(communicating with the past)
{ Why consider difference is important?
z Design (decoration in the Facebook is poor)
 Claims (3)
{ SN How is social media reconfiguring
z Social social infrastructure and where is all
media
of this going?
5 properties of Social Media:
{ Persistence
{ Replicability
{ Searchability
{ Scalability
{ (de)locatability
 Claims (3)
{ SN How is social media reconfiguring
z Social social infrastructure and where is all
media
of this going?
3 dynamics of Social Media:
{ Invisible Audiences
{ Collapsed Contexts – difficult to figure what is
appropriate
{ Blurring of Public and Private
 End

Discussion