Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore June 26, 2015 // Computer-Mediated Communication Online Communities II

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore1 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 WarcraftSecond Life UsenetSourceForge

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore2 Online Communities as Collective Goods “Social Network Capital” “Knowledge Capital” “Communion”

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore3 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

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore4 Symbols and Community

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore5 Community Boundaries

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore6 Community Boundaries and Symbols

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore7 Symbolic Meaning within Communities

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore8 Discussion

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore9 As a group, pick one online community to discuss Some types you might want to consider:  mailing lists  Usenet groups  social networking sites  discussion forums  IRC channels  games

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore10 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”

6/26/2015Computer-Mediated Communication — Cheshire & Fiore11   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; 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, “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