Tuesday, October 31, 2006 

Content is king! You have to provide them with content that they want in order to get people to come to your site. However, you should be particularly careful in how you integrate it with the community features of your site. Content should be interwoven with community features to lend a coherent integrated experience for the user. For example, Powazek discusses Salon’s failings as of 2002 at providing an integrated experience when using the site. He notes that clicking on a small community link would lead to a community menu with various topics, not to the thread related to the community. Furthermore, the community element of the site did not have the same look as the content areas resulting in a disjointed user experience where the user felt their contributions were unimportant. .

Salon has done a lot to rectify this in the past four years although the link to the community function is still relatively hidden among text (Click the Post a letter button). Its community has the same look as the content and is integrated in a horizontal fashion with the content linking to the relevant community topic thread. However, Salon still breaks one cardinal rule: The post button only takes two clicks to get to. The result of this may be lower quality postings as it encourages impulsive comments that may not have been thought through, especially since posters are not required to register.

The fray, the community tied to Slate, is in many ways reminiscent of the 2002 Salon community. When you click on the community feature it takes you to correct directory but not necessarily to the correct thread for discussing an article. Furthermore, the interface is blocky and does not mirror the content section of the site at all. The site only shows one posting and to read replies in the same thread one must repeatedly click on the link to the reply and let the page reload. Still Slate manages to do a few things that Salon does not. First, it explicitly elicits a reply from it’s users by asking “What did you think of this article?” This is a good attempt to relate to readers on a human level and may pay off judging by how active the threads are. Second, it asks its readers to register. This may go a long way to preventing spam on the site.

So if we use Powazek’s standards for judging a site neither Salon or Slate got it entirely right. An ideal format would the integrated content and community design of Salon with the more structured posting process of Slate. Posting could be made more difficult for both sites by burying the post button a little further down in the articles. Overall I’m going to have to say that I personally prefer Salon’s system if simply because I’m a sucker for pretty, easy to use design.

Monday, October 30, 2006 

We’ve mentioned a Stephen Colbert and his clashes with Wikipedia a few times in my online social interaction class. As a result of repeated mentions on his show several articles on Wikipedia have been restricted to editing as a result of references on his show (for example the entry on elephants).

A parody site has been created that lampoons the Wikipedia community. It is based on the principle of Wikiality which “may be defined as: A reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it becomes the truth. It is generally believed to be a portmanteau of the words “Wikipedia” and “reality”.”

 

According to Wired News the government is ignoring reports regarding security concerns for RFID chips and going ahead with plans to install these in passports. Data can be read from twenty feet away allowing law enforcement to scan a crowd while walking through it. Furthermore, RFID presents the potential for hackers to skim the cards information aggravating problems with identity theft.

Most chilling however is:

"...When customs agents begin reading the new PASS cards at the border, the travel data will be stored for up to 50 years, will be shared within Homeland Security and will be made available to law enforcement groups, both domestically and internationally, according to DHS' own privacy assessment (.pdf)."
Read the whole article here.

Personally I think this all sounds a little big brother-ish and I hope that civil liberty unions take up the flag on this one. The potential for abuse is too great. What do you think?

Sunday, October 29, 2006 

Oh....I got invited back to China...if they offer reasonable compensation then I'm going back :-).

 

Proposal for a Learning Social Network

Are we missing the point? A considerable amount of conversation in the class thus far has been focused on how to make a learning community that would benefit the undergraduates, yet we still seem to have a good bit of doubt as to whether the undergraduates would use the system.

Powazek proposes that one of the most fundamental elements for the creation of an online community is content. When we create a learning community that is focused on the exchange of knowledge let's start at the top and let it trickle down. My proposal is a knowledge community anchored in the professors at Purdue.

GOAL

To create an online community to facilitate the exchange of knowledge.

PROFILE SETUP

Profiles should be left open where all individuals can access one another’s profile by default in order to promote information exchange. Individuals can limit access to a particular network or contact list if it is later desired. These profiles would include a place where an individual could inform others of their academic interests, publications, and achievements as well as their favorite books, movies, television shows, and hobbies. I would like these entries to work similarly to other social networking sites, such as facebook, where if an individual clicks on the televisions show "Lost" in a person’s profile, you are shown a list of others in your network that also listed "Lost". This would allow individuals who share one another’s interests to quickly find one another.

ARTICLE CITATIONS

Additionally, I would like a place where individuals could enter recent articles they've read and presentations they've attended. When articles are entered specific fields should be created for author, title, journal, etc. so that the article can be formatted to different citation standards. Keywords should also be prompted for that can be used as a form of tagging. Furthermore, these fields can be used to search for articles. By creating a database of articles, users can search for particular articles and see what others thought of them. When exploring an individual’s profile, articles/presentations can be clicked upon and any notes that an individual made regarding their thoughts towards the article are shown. A community tab at the top of the page would allow users to toggle between the individual’s opinions and the opinions of others in the community regarding the article. This setup could also be used with profile information such as television and books providing a social forum in which to comment on pop culture.

BLOGS

Blogs would be available on individual pages so that others could be provided with a space to discuss intellectual interests, personal issues, and daily life. Blogs should be encouraged as important venue for sociability. Featured blogs could be noted on a main page and a blog roll and news reader function could be incorporated into the site.

LISTSERV STYLE MESSAGES/ CONTACT LISTS

Individuals can send questions and developing ideas to one another by tagging their message according to interests found within the community. For example, a message tagged with "online social interaction" could be sent to every member who indicated interests in this topic. Although the amount of messages could be overwhelming if open to the entire community, if options allowed messages to be restricted to an individual’s contact list much of the noise might be filtered out. This feature could also allow for discussions of pop culture.

PARTICIPANTS

I would like the professors within the communication department and a few complementary disciplines (psychology, sociology, political science, etc.) to set up profiles on our social networking site. I believe that we must have a useable content to attract others to our site. What I expect is a trickle down effect where graduate students and undergraduates would join the network to have access to the knowledge provided on it. As they begin to set up profiles and interact on the site they will make valuable contributions to the content themselves. By mandating that individuals must be on another’s contact list to use the question/answer feature pestering of professors for attention/assistance could be circumvented while still providing valuable resources regarding thoughts, interests, and reading lists.

WHY WOULD PEOPLE JOIN?

There are numerous uses of the system that I have proposed here, from the individual to the intrinsically social.

  1. Articles and presentation listings could provide a research resource in the annotated online citation database similar to endnote software but independent of physical location. You wouldn't need to have the file in front of you. Citations could be formatted in any manner if entered in the proposed manner. You would not only have access to articles you've read but also to those read and commented on by others
  1. This social network could be used as tool for faculty to recruit graduate students and alternately by students to find out about particularly faculties interests and graduate programs
  1. The network could be used to recruit research teams
  1. Cross disciplinary teams could be developed as a result of tagging interests. Computer science, communication, biology, and psychology students could network based on interests and work to integrate various fields on research projects
  1. The question and answer feature would allow for discussion of both academic and pop culture topics creating a social environment. Furthermore, the group mind element can facilitate higher quality conclusions.

OTHER FUTURE FEATURES

A group feature could be added that could allow users to collaboratively work on documents online.

Space could be provided to allow others to edit or look over papers.

Announcement feature for community/professional events keyed to individuals particular interests using tags from interests and recently read papers.

Saturday, October 28, 2006 

Ladies please control yourselves!

Just Kidding! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Thursday, October 26, 2006 

Does participation matter more than quality? Ask the troll. Clay Shirky suggests in a critique of traditional mass media outlets foray into community building that participation matters much more to creating a successful community. Whereas traditional media filters its content prior to broadcast, the internet encourages people to publish their messages and let the reader determine which messages are worth attention. A good example of this is the moderation on Slashdot where users determine the highest quality postings which are moved to the top so that more readers are exposed to them. As a result, low quality postings are to a large extent ignored. Shirky argues that quantity is more important to quality for community development because the readers will determine what is worthy of attention. Filtering only functions to squash social interaction.

While quantity may be more important than quality for the community as a whole, for the individual participant the quality of contributions likely extremely important. Participation in online communities can serve many functions including information seeking, socialization, emotional support. However, the gratification of having an audience and expressing the self may be most important. However, in order for these needs to be met participants must be able to create messages that are judged positively by the community and garner sufficient attention. As Shirky suggests, messages that are poorly written or do not contribute to the community’s discussions are filtered by the reader. Therefore, in order to develop an audience that meets the individual’s needs quality messages must be constructed.

Unfortunately, despite the ideal of equality all men were not created equal. Some of us are better communicators and writers just as some of us are better athletes. This may lead to antisocial behavior. Frustration and negative attributions of community member’s responses to their messages may spur some individuals to behave in antisocial behavior to garner the audience they desire. As a result some “trolls” may be individuals whose writing skills prevent them from gaining their desired audience. Quality does matter. In order to be an active productive member (there are always lurkers) of the community an individual must have their needs met and to achieve this end must produce quality messages.

Saturday, October 21, 2006 

Community: The Medium as Context

Communities are networks that provide socialization, resources, belonging and social identity. Traditional community’s interpersonal ties are tightly knit and geographically bounded making social and material support easy to provide but limiting the amount of connection with outsiders (Wellman, 2001). However, the development of communication and transportation technologies have led to the dispersal of interpersonal ties resulting in the atrophy of geographically bounded communities. As social interaction on the internet has developed some have excitedly hailed the development of online “virtual communities” (Rheingold, 1993). However, before conceding the existence of virtual communities we must we explore various conceptions of community, how they can be applied to different forms of online interaction, and the problems with such applications.

What Makes a Community?

Communitas is a concept developed by anthropologist Victor Turner during his work concerning ritual in tribal societies. Communitas can be defined as “full, unmediated communication, even communion, which arises spontaneously in all kinds of groups, situations, and circumstances (Turner, 2004). Communitas during rites of passage can be broken down into three phases. First, individuals experience separation from their individual identities and prior roles within the structured social system. A second, liminal phase is a period of ambiguity during which individual identity is submerged and the impact of existing social structures on the individual is dramatically decreased. The internet may provide a liminal space in which nonverbal signs of status and role within society are invisible to those with whom one interacts. Finally, following the liminal phase aggregation occurs during which the individual returns to a more defined social structure.

Communitas, as an unstructured communal experience, is an alternative form of human interaction to formal, hierarchically structured social systems (Turner, 1995). At first glance it is easy to interpret communitas as the antithesis of structured forms of human interrelatedness. However, communitas does not destroy the existing social order but actually strengthens it. The experience of communitas is grounded in the emotional impact of being intimately connected to another. There is an inherently spiritual element to the concept of communitas which is understandable given that the early application of the concept to supernatural and religious experience within tribal societies. Still the emotion powering communitas is difficult to maintain and will eventually subside. This is not necessarily undesirable; Turner notes that “communitas cannot stand alone if the material and organizational needs of human beings are to be adequately met” (Turner, 1995, pg. 6). Rather than destroying the hierarchical structure of a society in which it is couched, it provides an emotional release which serves to validate, renew, and strengthen the existing structure (Turner, 1995). Indeed, the ideas and philosophies developed during communitas can be infused into the larger society resulting in subtle change. However, this modification is not an overturning of the existing social order but rather a small step in a society’s evolution. Thus, communitas and hierarchically structured social systems can be conceived of as dialectically opposed social systems that are alternately favored based upon the needs of the society.

Wellman (2001) provides an alternative definition of community with the concept of “networked individualism”. Until relatively recently most communities were bounded geographically by the area within which one traveled. Hence, most communities were neighborhoods with house to house contact. Improvements in transportation has led to advent of door to door communities in which a person may have very limited local ties but have relatively developed dispersed ties which are maintained by visitations. The introduction of personal communication technologies, such as the internet and mobile phones, have allowed individuals to develop person to person communities consisting of the network of individual with whom they communicate. This manner of thinking about community differs from that of communitas in that communitas necessitates a shared space, real or virtual, in which to take place. At its heart communitas is about shared group experience. In contrast, networked individualism holds that even physically collocated individuals may be operating within different person to person communities based upon the interpersonal ties they choose to maintain (Wellman, 2001). However, the development of person to person communities does not mean that interaction in shared spaces cease to be important. Wellman (2001) acknowledges that person to person communication functions to supplement and support face to face interaction rather than replace it entirely. In short, networked individualism is essentially personalized communication networks which often supplement face to face interaction leading to a diminished importance of place.

Community in Online Media

Rather than conceiving of computer-mediated communication as a monolithic medium it is more productive to acknowledge it as a conglomeration of various media (Preece, 2000). Each medium has different properties which influence both the extent to which a community can be coalesced through it as well as the community’s structure. For example, instant messaging is useful for providing quick, person to person semi-synchronous communication that is devoid of most nonverbal cues. While this medium may be capable of supporting Wellman’s person to person community, it is inadequate for the development of communitas which requires group participation. Therefore, it is important to separately explore individual mediums and how they impact the types of communities formed around them. Specifically, the early bulletin board based community of the WELL, wikis, with Wikipedia considered as the paradigm case, and blogs will be examined.

The WELL

The term “virtual community” was coined in reference to the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL), which can be considered the prototypical online community, by author Howard Rheingold (1993) in his book The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rheingold provides a history of the WELL in his book while making an argument that the online interaction found on the WELL constituted community. The WELL was an early bulletin board system created in 1985 by Steward Brand and Larry Brilliant as an extension of their Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture publication first published in the 1960’s. The Whole Earth Catalog’s objective was to provide tools to allow individuals to become self-sufficient thus freeing themselves from the capitalistic market (Seabrook, 1997). The WELL was a continuation of these ideals as it was started as a deliberate social experiment with the hope that it would be vehicle of social change. Additionally, many of the original support staff were recruited from the Farm, a hippie commune in rural Tennessee. The fact that the WELL had its roots in the 1960’s counterculture was not without significance. Deflem (1991) use the hippie movement as an archetypical case to chart the course of communitas. He traces the progression of the hippie movement from spontaneous communitas as experienced via “happenings” to the more formal development of philosophies and ideologies that were to guide later participants. Although the hippie movement, like any experience of communitas, was unable to be sustained, its subsequent ideologies, such as self-expression diffused throughout society creating the potential for social change. These values influenced the development of the WELL as the final goal was to create a space, not unlike the Paris salons of the late 19th century, where open discussion was encouraged.

Rheingold (1993) believes the WELL experienced a major turning point with the first death of one of its participants. He describes Blair Newman as an overly enthusiastic individual and prolific writer who was addicted to the attention that he garnered by participating in the WELL. Newman, who although quite accomplished, had previously suffered from drug addiction and was an unstable individual. Near the end of his life he decided almost on a whim to erase most of his contributions to the WELL, an act, which given his abundant contributions, damaged the continuity of many conversation threads on the WELL. According to Rheingold when Newman finally succeeded in taking his own life people responded to Newman’s death it two ways, but both were unmistakably emotional. First, some of the WELL’s participants attended his funeral and held a “virtual funeral” consisting of conversation threads set up where individuals both eulogized him. The second response involved criticized both Newman’s actions and accusing his eulogizers of hypocrisy due to their none to kind treat of Newman while he lived. This dual response to Newman’s death highlights the need to distinguish between cyberspaces and the communities which dwell within them. Not all participants felt that the WELL was a community, although a community of users may have existed within the WELL (Matei, 2001; Rheingold, 1993). Even Rheingold (1993) himself tacitly acknowledges this when he notes that rarely did individuals from the Grateful Dead forums interact in other parts of the WELL. The ritualistic response to Newman’s death and WELL participants perception of this event as a rite of passage provides evidence for the existence of communitas on the WELL. Rheingold notes a fellow participant astutely observed that “you aren’t a real community until you have a funeral” (23).

A much less rosy account of life on the WELL can be found in John Seabrooks (1997) book Deeper: A Two Year Odyssey in Cyberspace. Seabrook was a journalist for the New Yorker who first gained the WELL’s attention after writing an article about being “flamed” online. After initially critiquing his approach and writing style, the WELL participants began a series of vicious personal attacks on his competency when they became aware of his lurking on the forum. After Seabrook admitting how distressing he found these attacks, Rheingold, one of his most vocal detractors, soothed him somewhat by telling him, “It’s an initiation ritual, John Seabrook. Stick around and help us dump on the next guy. ;-)” (Seabrook, 1997, pg 177). These ritualistic attacks may have been especially consequential given Seabrook’s occupation as a journalist at an esteemed publication. During rites of passage initiates are broken down only to be reshaped by the community into which they are entering. Fledgling members are expected to behave humbly and to submit to abuse by more senior members (Turner, 1995). Seabrook’s journalistic credentials set him apart from other WELL participants making essential that he undergo initiation that striped that status from him prior to joining a community of writers.

Although the WELL certainly bore several of the superficial characteristics of community, whether the relationships that took place there actually constitute community is still be debated. Matei (2001) argues that the countercultural ideologies introduced to the WELL at its inception by the commune workers and counterculture personalities created dialectical tensions between the desire for self-expression and the need for a communal experience. Analysis of WELL postings on the nature of the WELL as a community produced a myriad of responses that indicate that self-expression and individual agency is valued over strong communal ties. Matei (2001) interprets this as evidence that while virtual “communities” exist, they are qualitatively different that more conventional communities. Their dynamics resemble small groups in that they are “based on weak ties and voluntary participation, on emotional support, ‘open communication’ and non-judgmental interaction between members” (32). In short, although individualism is favored over community, a modest amount of community spirit persists.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia, the brainchild of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, grew out of Nupedia, an early effort to create a peer reviewed online Encyclopedia. Unlike Wikipedia, Nupedia relied on a seven step peer review process that was eventually reduced to a two step process more in line with traditional academic publishing (Sanger, 2005) . Furthermore, it required that participants demonstrate expertise in their field of contribution. These policies, while not completely preventing participation from non-experts, certainly restricted their potential contributions to the site. Wikipedia was revolutionary because the wiki software allowed anyone to edit content. Additionally, it did not have the formal review process of Nupedia. Originally Sanger reports that both he and Wales were somewhat skeptical of the viability of the project and had modest hopes that the wiki would produce a few drafts for Nupedia. However, Nupedia had only generated 25 official articles with only about 150 working drafts by the time Wikipedia was established. In contrast, when Wikipedia went live in January of 2001 it produced more than 600 articles in its first month with the approximately 2,000 Nupedia participants forming its core contributor base and providing the necessary jump start (Sanger, 2005).

Wikipedia holds to its claim of being an encyclopedia and justifies its lack of a formal review process through a philosophy that high quality entries will emerge through continual collaboration and improvement over time. Numerous critiques have been written of this philosophy, and claims have been made that what more accurately describes the product of collaboration on Wikipedia is regression towards the statistical mean in terms of quality ( Schiff, 2006; McHenry, 2004). Although Wikipedia claims to be an encyclopedia, perhaps the best metaphor to describe it is a knowledge swap meet where individuals share what they know with each other (Matei, personal communication). Wiki software offers an ideal environment for the development of communitas; anyone can contribute and the articles are unsigned. This provides a liminal space in which individuating features are submerged and status, in the form of traditional expertise, means little. Furthermore, gaining access to the administrative core of Wikipedia’s community requires hard work that can be equated to a rite of passage. About seventy percent of the articles on Wikipedia are the product of two percent of its participants.

Wikipedia is a good example of a community that is cycling through stages of communitas. First, as communitas progresses it proceeds through phases of spontaneous, normative, and finally ideological communitas. During ideological communitas societal models are prescribed in order to ensure others the opportunity to experience communitas. The development of Wikipedia policies, such as the neutral point of view policy, can be seen as the early stages in the development of policies and models for which ideological communitas calls. Second, Turner (1995) notes that communitas is a cycle that ends with the revitalization of the existing social structure. Wikipedia, which started as a grand experiment in egalitarianism, is showing signs of the power consolidation. For example, currently a small group of administrators have the ability to delete articles, block other users, and revert text more easily than other participants (Schiff, 2005). Sanger describes the Wikipedia as having progressed from “a nearly perfect anarchy to an anarchy with gang rule” (Schiff, 2005, pg. 6). In short, Wikipedia is a community on the downward arch of communitas.

Blogs

Another medium that has the potential to foster internet communities are weblogs, or blogs. Since blogging began in the late 1990’s they have been hailed as revolutionary because they allow publishing to the masses without the traditional publishing houses. The basic blogging technology allows authors to easily post content to a web page and allows audience members to comment on posts. The topics of blogs vary from the personal diaries, which seem to be strewn across the internet, to forums in which artists can display their photographs, to detailed travel accounts. However, two varieties of blogs that may be particularly conducive to the development of online communities are collaborative blogs and political blogs.

There are many blogs on the internet that do not constitute communities. Therefore, it is important to identify what properties successful blogs include that allow communities to coalesce around them. First, blogs must have a devoted audience in order to develop a community which can be built by a network of hyperlinks between blogs. Adding hyperlinks has been shown to attract other hyperlinks in turn building traffic (Barabasi, as cited in Wolf, 2004). Linking between blogs not only serves to build bridges to other potential readers on other blogs but also encourages bloggers to interact and collaborate. This can be consequential considering individual blogs are more likely to suffer narrow topic focus and low visitor traffic (Madden, 2005). Commercial blogging ventures recognize the potential of collaborative blogging communities and have attempted to amass networks of bloggers that work together producing fresh content among a set of blogs much faster than individual blogger would be capable (Madden, 2005). However, merely building a readership is not enough to ensure the formation a community.

The second element that allows for community formation on blogs is interaction in the form of comments on individual posts. Commenting allows individuals to engage both the blogger and fellow readers on either an intellectual or emotional level creating the potential for relationship formation. This feature of blogs is being embraced by technologically savvy politicians, corporations, and progressive advertisers. During the 2003 presidential campaign Howard Dean used blogs as a way to both communicate with his constituency as well as gage reactions to his speeches. He notes in a Wired magazine interview that people had “given up on traditional politics precisely because…they had no way to shout back” and the net provided them with that opportunity (Wolf, 2004). Additionally, technology companies have such as Sun Microsystems have also informally encouraged employees to blog as a way of reaching consumers (Anderson, 2004). Recently the entertainment companies have even been featuring blogs by fictional characters in an effort to engage audiences.

Communitas may be especially likely to develop when individual bloggers band together into conglomerates or work together on collaborative blogs. Many blogs that allow comments are open to the general public creating a liminal space in which participation is not restricted to an elite few. Furthermore, visitors are not merely passive receivers of information but are encouraged to actively engage both their authors and other audience members. The inherent egalitarianism of the technology is conducive to the building of communitas. Still communitas may not be sustainable especially as the blog readership grows to an unwieldy size. Turner (1995) states that when communitas falters the previously existing social structure is reaffirmed and revitalized. For example, a large blog such as instapundit.com has removed the comment feature in effect killing the community that once surrounded it. However, it still has a substantial readership. It has cycled through the stages of communitas and has reemerged resembling the one to many nature of traditional news publications.

Although the discussion thus far has focused on the strengths and weaknesses of communitas as an explanation for online community, Wellman’s (2001) networked individualism can provide insight to online communities from a social networking perspective. First, participants on the WELL and on blogs can be considered nodes in an individual’s personal network that spans both their online and offline interactions. When information is required one place that individuals may turn is to online acquaintances. Second, the communities them selves surrounding the WELL and blogs may be considered a singular information node. For example, blog readers seeking information on a particular phenomenon may know that given the narrow topic scope of many blogs that a certain blog would be an ideal place to begin. Readers are able to passively search for information from previous interactions because the medium by its nature produces text. Likewise, Rheingold (1993) relates that when attempting to remove a tick from one of his children he addressed his problem to the participants of a particular forum as a whole. He marvels at the speed at which the group mind could respond to his query. Finally, the activation of personal networks can work in both directions; while a person can explore his network of acquaintances online for help and assistance, online individuals can also induce others to activate their offline networks to achieve a particular goal. One example of this is when an online appeal on the WELL led participants to activate their offline networks to acquire assistance for a sick friend in a foreign country. Similarly, a missionary friend has been asking for material support for his work with Nepalese orphans. His requests have spurred his readers to activate offline networks to obtain the need supplies.

Towards Future Research

If one considers online communities to be primarily communities of interest where only a single or few elements are salient, then interaction in a wider context may have significant effects on the relationship. Specifically, communitas in online communities should be explored in the context of networked communities. Networked communities differ from many “virtual” communities because individuals first get to know one another within a geographically based community and subsequently interact online. Those who do not meet prior to interacting online at least have a reasonable expectation of encountering one another face to face (Kavanaugh, Carroll, Rosson, Zin, & Reese, 2005). Furthermore, online communities often turn to offline community rules and roles to guide their interactions (Preece & Maloney-Krichmar, 2003). Although the internet provides a liminal space in which offline communities can develop communitas, simply moving geographical communities online likely is not sufficient encouragement to develop communitas. Anticipated future face-to-face interaction along with status differences brought to the online environment may stifle the potential for communitas. Groups that exhibit large differentials in social status or have strict offline hierarchies would be less likely to experience communitas online. For example, local book club, in which status and hierarchies plays less of a role, is more likely to experience communitas online than hierarchically organized work teams within a corporation. Other variables likely to effect the development of communitas for networked communities include the proportion of offline to online interaction and homogeneity of participants. Research should be conducted evaluating offline community/group structure, offline patterns of interaction, and offline community statuses role on inhibiting or promoting communitas in networked communities.

Research should also be conducted on the effect of face to face interaction on virtual communities. Rheingold (1993) paints a relatively positive picture of the offline interaction of online communities with his description of WELL parties. However, offline interaction provides the potential for previously unknown status cues such as socio-economic class, age, sex, and race to become salient in interaction. Research should consider the frequency of offline interactions and the level of group homogeneity on the development of communitas in online groups. This is an important area of study given that as community members form interpersonal ties and grow closer they are likely to communicate using more forms of media (Wellman, 2001).

Form and interaction in online communities is heavily shaped by the communication medium they employ. Blogs, wikis, and bulletin board systems all have unique histories and properties that influence subsequent communities. One direction for future research is to examine how these online communities react when asked to interact face-to-face. Additionally, the factors that contribute to communitas in networked communities should be explored as they move online. In conclusion, the internet provides a liminal space that is conducive for the development of communitas. However, online community’s interactions may be determined by both the medium and the individual attributes of participants.

Works Cited:

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Schiff, S. (2006, July 31st). Know it all: Can wikipedia conquer expertise?. Retrieved October 22, 2006, from The New Yorker Web site: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Turner, E. (2004). Rites of communitas. In F.A. Frank (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals (97-101). New York: Routledge.

Turner, V. (1995). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure . New York: Aldine De Gruyter Press.

Wellman, B. (2001). Physical place and cyber place: the rise of personalized networks. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), 227-252

Wolf, G. (2004, January). How the internet invented howard dean . Retrieved October 22, 2006, from Wired Magazine Web site: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/dean.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

 

As of today a correction to the syllabus has been issued.

(See below posting)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 

It seems that lately I may be required reading for a graduate level course (LIS 590 CMC: Computer-Mediated Communication) at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The past year I have been writing on a collaboratively written blog for my computer-mediated communication and new technology courses at Purdue. However, my final paper last spring did not include a byline attributing authorship so people assumed that my professor, Sorin Matei, had written it. As a result if you scroll through the syllabus you’ll find my paper, SIDE Theory, Small World Networks, and Smart Mob Formation: A Beginners Guide assigned for the week of September 21st as what appears to be required reading. I’ve since added a byline to my original paper and Sorin plans to notify the instructor as to the authorship. Honestly, I don’t have near the intellectual pedigree that Sorin does. Still I have to admit that I’m flattered that I’ve found myself in such good company as Rich Ling, Joe Walther, and Sherry Turkle…I wonder how long before they fix it.

 

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Since the early days of the internet one thing that every newbie had found out very quickly is that in a text based environment identity has the potential to be fluid. The ability to selectively self-present allows us to display the best parts of ourselves while hiding those nasty habits that we really don’t want others to know about. If you want you can even create an entire new persona.

Warrant is the extent to which who we claim to be can be verified. Nonverbal cues, the setting, and commonly known individuals allow us in face-to-face interaction that a person is who they say they are. Online things are bit more tricky because the greater anonymity a medium affords the more we can shape our self-presentation (Walther & Parks, 2002).

Online dating sites are an arena in which many people selectively self-present themselves in a positive light. However, while they provide a way for people to meet others outside of their social circles, they present the problem of determining whether people are as they claim. When you’re trying to pick up a date it shouldn’t matter what you actually look like, it’s what’s on the inside that count’s right? Individuals can be found that will actually help you write a profile for you, essentially choosing how to selectively self-present yourself for you. In contrast, True.com is a dating site that differs from others such as match.com or eharmony in that it bills itself as performing background checks on clients and thus weeding out married individuals and convicted felons. Essentially, it provides some level of warrant for its users in an environment in which it would be difficult to establish.

Walther, J. B., & Parks, M. R. (2002). Cues filtered out, cues filtered in: Computer-mediated communication and relationships. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 529-563). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Monday, October 16, 2006 

The only way to truly prevent data theft from old hard drives! Build your own!

Wednesday, October 04, 2006 

Read my friend Jordan's blog The Bear in Nepal for some hilarious stories of his hijinks abroad...

_________

Below is my experiment in cooking Korean style tofu. First, you have to drain the tofu by acutally putting a weight on it to squeeze out the water (I forgot to do this at first and was wondering why it didn't fry up right). Once you've done that fry it up as shown below.

Then throw all the tofu in a pot with some beef broth (I spiced mine up by cooking a can of Campbells beef broth with minced garlic and ginger). Additional sauce ingredients are sake, sugar, chilipepper and soy sauce. Allow to cook. Add a little bit of beef but make sure it's submerge so it will cook.




Bubblin' merrily...

Add some green onions (I messed up and added some too early which I had to pick out) when about half the broth is gone...

When you can no longer see much broth pull the whole mess off the fire and sprinkle with a little sesame oil. Serve hot.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006 

When I was 12 my parents bought a second hand set of Encyclopedia Britannica and an unabridged dictionary. I think my mother had images of us sitting on the floor on summer evenings with the “F” Volume as we slowly worked our way from “A” to “Z”. I think she was a bit disappointed at the disinterest that we showed at the time. A leit-motif in my household growing up was “Why don’t you look it up?” whenever a question was asked. Sometimes we’d be just curious enough to do it.

I was twelve in 1993, the year before the World Wide Web took off. Now thirteen years later a new batch of twelve years are growing up but instead of large, heavy tomes the repository of knowledge in many households is probably the internet. Wikipedia was begun as “an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language.” However, it has routinely been criticized as being inaccurate, lacking in credibility, and in some cases sloppily written.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has proposed a project, Citizendium, that he thinks will be able to remedy the shortcomings of Wikipedia. Namely Citizendium will be a web community of experts who author or oversee articles in their area of expertise. On the blog Many 2 Many Clay Shirky critiques Sanger’s definition of experts as being too narrow, consisting only of those who are part of existing institutions. Furthermore, he argues that “ordinary” participants are not likely to work hand in hand with experts. People’s egos get tied up in the text that they produce. If one begins with the premise that a majority of the participation on Wikipedia is a result of the self satisfaction and ego boost that participants get from their contributions it does seem unlikely that the lay participants on Citizendium will want to defer to editors they have never seen or met but have been mysteriously validated as experts by the site. There is of course the potential that the goal of the site will lead to self selection of only those lay people willing to differ to expertise and be constantly overruled…but I’m not going to hold my breath. (Click here to read Larry Sangers rejoinder.)

Despite any inaccuracies or lack of credibility that currently plagues Wikipedia it serves a function and is not likely to shrivel up or go away simply because an alternative reference source is made available. I like Sorin’s description in class of Wikipedia as a knowledge swap meet. You may not expect to find anything of tremendous value but you might find something you can use. It’s the idea of “good enough” knowledge. Come to think of it, after a few years, all those Encyclopedia Britannica volumes written by experts had become good enough knowledge too.

Sunday, October 01, 2006 

The following is an excerpt from an mass email I recieved from a friend I met in China. Victoria specializes in getting technology into the hands of people in third world nations. This is a description of her trip to Tibet that I found interesting:

I admit that this email was difficult to write. The history of prolonged marginalization made some Tibetans rather hostile and, as such, it was so tedious to hitch dumptrucks, ride motorcycles, take minibuses or do anything without a fistful of bureaucratic permits. But with adversity comes incredible stories---from tasting rancid yak butter tea, to singing Pavorotti on public buses, to feeling the icy Himalayan rain for the first time on your skin--- I'll bet you've never gotten used to people urinating/defecating on streets in broad daylight (women did it too!) So for you city-folks who are into the squalor of the Third World, lemme start with three important life-lessons I've learned from this trip:


(1) First, Boyle's Gas Expansion Law works... even in Tibet. DO NOT follow my example and drink Pepsi before you board the Lhasa-bound train. Carbonated drinks are excruciatingly painful as you ascend to the highest altitudes on earth (read: very low atmospheric pressure) and not only is bloating unpleasant, all the nice people in your compartment are forced to pretend that they don't smell the constant bodily gas. And it's a long, long 30-hour ride.

(2) Second, dress appropriately. Only fools wear jackets in Lhasa during midsummer---the blinding sun will roast you with oppressive heat. And moreover, nothing marks you as a foreigner as wearing distressed REI when Tibetans are pimpin' Ralph Lauren. This is not a self-indulgent concern for fashion; it's prudent advice. The locals will never understand why you paid premium to look ragged. And then when you need to bargain, they'll think you PREFER to spend more for crap. Good thing there's remedy shopping at Barkhor Square.

(3) Third, hitchhiking is not as horrid as illegal immigrants would have you believe. Even through forbidden territory guarded by gun-toting soldiers. I mean, you get to see what most tourists can't. The bummer is that Chinese/Tibetan men display swaggering braggodocio by constantly arguing or smoking or spitting, and you'll have to pull a dirty blanket over your head whenever you pass police checkpoints. But equipped with Bose headphones and 30-GB iPod, you can watch "Desperate Housewives" and it's rather tolerable.

 


I found this on my cell phone. I'd forgotten I'd taken it. These went down my throat in China. Fried bamboo worms. Yum!

About me

  • Who: Scott Sanders
  • When: 8-22-1981
  • Scott Sanders is a PhD student at the University of Southern California in the Annenberg School of Communication. His research interests lie in how people use communication technologies to maintain and support interpersonal relationships.

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Don't step down, Miss Julie. Listen to me--no one would believe that you stepped down of your own accord; people always say that one falls down. -- Jean, Miss Julie.