Session 3

I am a fairly private person and I don’t really have the desire to share my personal beliefs with others over the computer. As a result, in order to make myself anonymous, I have taken part in a lot of deceptive behavior. I have made fake names, fake profiles and asked fake questions in hopes of seducing various responses. It is not enjoyable and makes me feel like a borderline stalker. I am not sure if I am supposed to feel as though I am being manipulative, but that’s how I see it. Psychology and social science are scary tools.

Ridings maintains that members become attached to the communities and visit them often, sometimes becoming addicted. There is no real data as to what makes a person an active participant; however, it Ridings does indicate that it requires persistent interaction. This type of interaction allows members to feel like they are part of a larger social group.

Why do people join these types of groups? Well, according to Ridings, humans have a need to belong and it also allows them acquire information and achieve various goals. Ridings maintains that the research shows that exchange of information is among the central reasons why people join and remain in an “online community”. However, according to Ridings, others have asserted there are other possible reasons. As a result, Riding maintains that people are turning the Internet into a social entity. I tend to agree to a certain extent with Ridings conclusion; however, I am not too sure on how these implications play out. I can see the positives and the negatives of the Internet being turned into a social entity, but I am in no position to make a judgment call on this issue.

Ling looks at various experiments. Experiment 1 looks at motivating conversational contributions through group homogeneity and individual uniqueness. Ling points to social loafing as people working less hard when they are working jointly with others when they are working by themselves. This is quite interesting, especially as it relates to our experiences in ICS 691. It seems as though in 691, we are working both independently, as well as on a group basis of sorts. I have no doubt in my mind that this has caused me lots of confusion. Well, this combined with the fact that I have recently found out that my technological skills are lacking. Along with the fact that I sometimes have no idea what some of the computer science students are talking about (way way over my head). To me these are all de-motivating factors to contributing to online communities.

Tedjamulia, et. al, in their article proposed a model to help explain ways to motivate members making contributions to online communities. They assert that to make this type of contribution, members must incur costs, which include reputation and risks, as well as loss of time. Members drop out of communities because of poor participating and undersupply. I am not sure if I can accept the costs incurred, whether it be taking risks or saying things that may impact my reputation. I see that others in ICS 691 are willing to take risks and as a result, it seems that they have gotten good responses to their blogs and seem to have a firm grasp on these issues. As for myself, however, I still find it difficult to say exactly what is on my mind for the fear of retribution sometime down the line.

Tedjemulia, et. al, have argued that some online communities have introduced reward programs to induce meaningful contributions. Too few contributors, leads to less interaction and the interest of members dwindles. I would tend to agree with this. This is why getting a good marketing base and group of advertisers is sometimes very important to online communities, but then again, Craigslist has done quite well in its own respect without having fancy advertising.

Tedjamulia indicates that having trust can increase a persons desire to share. I think that this is where I have problems posting on my blog. I don’t really have trust because anyone can view anything I write. Tedjamulia, himself, could search google for his name and wind up on my blog. I don’t have trust that what I say will be taken with a grain of salt. Sharing in an online community is much more different than interacting in an academic classroom.

They continue that those who are intrinsically motivated will work harder, are more committed and are motivated by the act of participating. They ties this to something being interesting or enjoyable. I think this has a lot of truth to it, especially as it applies to my online community experience, including ICS 691. It is quite difficult to participate when you find the task to be difficult and nearly unmanageable in a reasonable amount of time. You need to enjoy something to want to contribute to it. You also need to weigh the costs to determine if it is worth it to you.

The quality and quantity of contributions to online communities definitely depends on whether you have an interest in it and/or enjoy it. I used to post on a local MMA website. I had over 400 posts. I was motivated to provide information and clarify various aspects of MMA. I even made enough posts to where I was rewarded with a T-shirt; however, I declined because I wanted to retain my anonymity. That experience has been very different from my recent online community experiences. I am still trying to figure out what my problem is.

They also propose that online community members “who are more intrinsically motivated will be more committed to the community and will contribute and participate more frequently than members with low intrinsic motivation.” I would agree with this based on the discussion above.

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Session 2

I would have to agree with Galston’s argument that “Contemporary American Society . . . is structured by two principal cultural forces: the high value attached to individual choice, and the longing for community.” I also believe that these values definitely transfer to the realm of Social Networking. Individuals do attach a high value to their individual choices and they do, to a certain extent long for community. As a result, Social Network sites provide a great avenue for an individual to pursue interactions and/or communities that are inline with their individual choices, which in turn, allows them to build a community.

I did think that some of Galston’s other ideas were interesting, especially when looking at Social Network sites. Galston suggested “that we focus on the four key structural features of community … limited membership, shared norms, affective ties, and a sense of mutual obligation—and investigate, as empirical questions, their relationship to computer-mediated communication.”

In Social Network sites, membership is limited by those who join the site, as well as by any preferences set by a member. I would tend to agree with Galston that this is an area that study should be focused on. In this context, in addition to the Social Network site, users are also able to limit their communities. This can be done through allowing a limited amount of individuals to be their pals or friends. As far as I know, additional limiting features are put in place. This take the form of “confirming a pal/friend” or “accepting” or “denying” the request. This allows a user to limit the amount of people that the allow into their “circle”. This is what we, as humans do with respect to our everyday social interactions and building fact-to-face communities. This also ties into shared norms, affective ties and a sense of mutual obligation.

I think that this idea connects with Weeks’ article. According to the Weeks article, social media do present an underexplored dimension in human relations…” When I read this part of the article, as well as Albrechtslund’s article on Participatory Surveillance, especially as it relates to Lateral Surveillance, it made me think. “I wondered if it was really possible to limit those who you want in your community based on shared values and norms, especially given that an individual could review your information and then seek to conform their norms and values to yours or what they perceive as being desirable to you.”

This brought me back to Weeks article that stated, “we are connecting two people largely through text. Text is an impoverished medium for communicating emotion, intent, real meaning.” If you combine the fact that communicating with text is quite limiting in of itself, as well as the fact that lateral surveillance it does raise serious questions in my mind as to how valuable these communities that are being built are. Whether this rises to the level of what is identified into the Weeks article, “we are connecting to a much wider range of people who don't know us, as well as to those who live close to us geographically. There is a flattening of relationships."

I think that a lot of the issues raised in Rosen’s article would be of benefit. These issues range from the pictures we paint of ourselves and how this relates to what we put out when we seek friendship, love and the pursuit of our career paths.

Do we create communities or do communities arise around us through Social Networks. I think there is room for discussion on social sorting as described by Albrechtslund’s article. In other words, how does social sorting take place.




This is something that I would like to explore further the the investigation.

I have created an account on Maoli World. My idea is to complete my profile in accordance with my own personal views on the subjects covered in this network. I know full well that my personal beliefs and opinions contradict those of other individuals. I will attempt to add these individuals and see whether or not they accept or deny me based on the profile I create.

Session 1

I would agree, that at the present, social computing is somewhat of an umbrella term for the technologies and virtual spaces that allow users to create, describe and share content, and for the communities that arise around them; however, it is unknown how much longer this will last. Each year the social computing umbrella seems to be growing. Social computing has grown and expanded into unforeseen areas. I have no reason to believe that this will discontinue.

If we are to consider social computing as an umbrella that encompasses technologies and virtual spaces, then social software must be a smaller umbrella that casts a shadow over social networks and various online communities. Ellison defined social network sides as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”.

As time goes on, and as advertisers, corporations, and various other individuals infiltrate social network sites, it appears that social network sites have become more bounded. There are more restrictions in place. Many of these restrictions prevent users from having the freedom to browse these sites. Content is often restricted and individuals are often forced to view unrelated advertisements.

Quite often there is no shared relationship amongst users. This has become more prevalent as individuals seek free advertising. Many times individuals within the community need to go to extraordinary measures to ensure that they create lists of users who they share an actual connection with. Again, to view and or traverse the system, one often needs to jump through various hurdles. According to Ellison, “Social network sites also provide rich sources of naturalistic behavioral data.” I would agree with this contention, however, it is for this very reason that it presents itself as a such a great venue for advertising. As a result, Individual likes, dislikes, preferences, etc. are saved. As technology has advanced so has the ability to target advertising. My experiences with this increase in advertising have definitely impacted my social computing experiences.

Beer and Burrows alluded to this when speaking of news in disguise. They maintained that “When advertising and public relations are disguised as news, the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred. Instead of more community, knowledge, or culture, all that Web 2.0 really delivers is more dubious content from anonymous sources. Thus far, there have been loose internal regulations that have monitored these social networks. Nardia’s research has shown that bloggers in the sample seemed fairly unconcerned about privacy. I would anticipate that this attitude will change and we will see new laws that will impact social networks.

My definition of social computing would be: “social computing is an ever changing umbrella that may or may not encompass technologies and virtual spaces that sometimes allow user to create, describe and share certain types of content, which allows communities to arise from them”.

Post Test

Just testing to make sure everything is under control, i.e. configured to HST (it's probably not).