Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore April 18, 2023//

Computer-Mediated Communication

Online Communities II

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Power in Online Communities What are the resources of interest, how

much value do they have to the users, and who ‘controls’ them?

World of Warcraft Second LifeUsenet SourceForge

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Online Communities as Collective Goods

“Social Network Capital”

“Knowledge Capital”

“Communion”

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Trust in Online Communities

What are the indicators of trustworthiness in a given online community, and who creates them?

User Reputation System

(experience-based)

Inferred Salience

User-defined Information

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Symbols and Community

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Community Boundaries

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Community Boundaries and Symbols

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Symbolic Meaning within Communities

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Discussion

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As a group, pick one online community to discussSome types you might want to consider: mailing lists Usenet groups social networking sites discussion forums IRC channels games

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Some questions to consider

1) Which people in your discussion group see themselves as members of the community? What does “member” mean in the context of your chosen community?

2) How does the community define its boundaries? If there have been times when those boundaries were violated, how did members respond?

3) Apply some or all of Kollock’s design principles of on- and off-line communities to your chosen community. Does your chosen community fulfill them? Some (not all) include:

ongoing interaction between members support for casual interaction persistent representation of identity promotion of institutional memory “ability to exchange objects and tokens”

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fun@sims Members have very different ideas about nature of list What does “fun” mean? Who belongs? Who reads? Older students use “authority” to define what messages belong on what list; define the rules Venues for normative action; email vs mailing list

External vs internal perceptions Eg IRC; outside looking in uses IRC use to assume lots of things; inside sees more complexity; define self

from within community Arguing about defining the community important

SIMS IRC, Flickr, local community IRC corresponds to real-world community; users vs non-users

power dynamics affects boundary drawing Communication channel as symbol? A lot depends on shared understanding Adoption of channel affects real-world communities; eg IRC backchannel or Flickr; cellphones; if you don’t adopt, not as part

of community Need to keep up with new communities; “Bay Area bubble”

Facebook Is it a community if it looks different for everyone? Perception of community is what individual makes of it How border issues are represented… Meta communities; real-life represented; different groups aggregated

Facebook -> smaller “communities” “Fiasco” creates an overall “Facebook community” Branded-ness; eg “Flickr people” vs “we just use” Flickr

IRC, email “circle” & “committee” Ongoing discussions Closed vs drifting in and out Deeper interaction -> more responsibility IRC members have hierarchy; don’t need consensus for decisions

But try to have minimal consensus