Week 13 Constructing Community (Part II)

Articles Read

Porter, E. (2004). A Typology of Virtual Communities: A Multi-Disciplinary Foundation for Future Research. JCMC, 10 (1), Article 3, November. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/porter.html

Rosen, D., Woelfel, J., Krikorian, D., & Barnett, G. A. (2003). Procedures for Analyses of Online Communities. JCMC, 8 (4). Available at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/rosen.html

Article Summary

Porter, E. (2004). A Typology of Virtual Communities: A Multi-Disciplinary Foundation for Future Research. JCMC, 10 (1), Article 3, November. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/porter.html

In this piece, Porter proposed a typology to categorize virtual communities. In this paper, a virtual community is defined as an aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact around a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by some protocols or norms. The proposed typology of virtual communities includes two first-level categories: Member-initiated and Organization-sponsored. At the second level of typology, virtual communities are categorized based on the general relationship orientation of the community. Member-initiated communities foster either social or professional relationships among members. Organization-sponsored communities foster relationships both among members and between individual members and the sponsoring organization. The paper also addressed the various attributes of virtual communities, including purpose (content of interaction), place (extent of technology mediation of interaction), platform (design of interaction), population interaction structure (pattern of interaction), and profit model (return on interaction). Finally, Porter evaluated the typology based on Hunt’s (1991) criteria, and stated the advantages of this typology over competing typologies.

Rosen, D., Woelfel, J., Krikorian, D., & Barnett, G. A. (2003). Procedures for Analyses of Online Communities. JCMC, 8 (4). Available at http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol8/issue4/rosen.html

In this piece, Rosen et al. presented a set of procedures for the analysis and interpretation of the content and structure of online networks and communities. An neural-based content analysis software -- Catpac was used to analyze data based on set parameters. Rosen et al. used the chat data from the Cornell Theory Center’s SciCentr, and analyzed the difference between trends of what the high school students are saying compared to what the Cornell mentors are saying, the gender differences and similarities, and so on. The method of parsing chat data with Catpac turned out to be extremely useful to study the data on individual and group levels. It allows users to input a name file allowing for the immediate analysis of the data on any demographic or systems level. Rosen et al. also talked about the limitations of Catpac and offered suggestions on how to further improve the Catpac.

What do you see as *the* most important impediment or problem for online socializing?

I see the most important impediment for online socializing is lack of accountability. In most cases, people don’t need to be accountable to anyone, because they are anonymous, or because they believe online world is a virtual world where trust and honesty are no longer meaningful. Anonymity has its own advantages such as allowing people to express their views more freely. However, Kevin Kelly, mathematician, a Senior Researcher at Stanford University, and Executive Director of Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information, warns of the dangers of anonymity. According to him, it's OK in small doses, but too much of it is a problem: "(I)n every system that I have seen where anonymity becomes common, the system fails. The recent taint in the honor of Wikipedia stems from the extreme ease which anonymous declarations can be put into a very visible public record. Communities infected with anonymity will either collapse, or shift the anonymous to pseudo-anonymous, as in eBay, where you have a traceable identity behind an invented nickname." Therefore, I think for any online communities it is important to make clear to the members how much trust each member could have on other members, and to figure out how to build such trust.

Discussion Questions (My Questions)

a. What are the particular issues we should pay attention to when analyzing the interactions in an online community?

b. As I have discussed, anonymity has its own advantages and disadvantages. How could we make the best use of its advantages and avoid its disadvantages in educational settings?

Week 11 Constructing Community (Part I)

Articles to Read

Wallace, P. (1999). Intergroup conflict and cooperation. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 84-109). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]

Williams, D., Ducheneaut, N., Xiong, L., Zhang, Y., Yee, N. & Nickell, E. (2006). From tree house to barracks: The social life of guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1(4), 338-361.

Steinkuehler, C. & Williams, D. (2006). Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as 'Third Places.' Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4).

Article Summaries

Wallace, P. (1999). Intergroup conflict and cooperation. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 84-109). London: Cambridge University Press.

In this chapter, Wallace explored the nature of group conflict and cooperation on the Internet, and addressed the question of whether the Interent created an environment that would be the foundation for a global community where cohesive and satisfying groups would emerge, free of intergroup tension and prejudice. Based on classic experiments in social psychology that explored intergroup rivalries on the Internet games

, when the environment fosters group identity, cohesive groups emerge; When a group feels threatened by outsider intrusion, the members band together more closely; If a valued superordinate goal requires cooperation, intergroup tension will decline; People tend to identify with a group and favor its members, despite the arbitrariness and absurdity of the criteria for group membership. According to people who create and run the multiplayer games, there are four main motivations for people to play games, to accumulate treasure or increase skill as an achiever, to enjoy mapping the topology of the game as an explorer, and to socialize or to act as a killer. Wallace also discussed that the Internet tended to allow more participation by lower status members, and expertism is one of those –isms that is probably more prevalent on the Internet than in real life. Although Internet users are not a cohesive ingroup, sometimes something may raise their hackles and cause them to coalesce in some surprisingly large numbers.

Williams, D., Ducheneaut, N., Xiong, L., Zhang, Y., Yee, N. & Nickell, E. (2006). From tree house to barracks: The social life of guilds in World of Warcraft. Games and Culture, 1(4), 338-361.

In this study, the authors explored the social life of guilds in a popular massively multiplayer online game – World of Warcraft. The study addressed three sets of research questions: What kinds of social organizations do players create in the game? What kind of roles and social relationships do players develop within guilds and what were the social consequences. To what extent does the social interface impact social interactions? An initial survey and network mapping of players and guilds were conducted. A group of players was interviewed and the interview transcripts were reviewed to explore players’ behaviors, attitudes, and opinions, the meanings they make, the social capital they derive, and the networks they form. It was found that players used to game to extend real life relationships, meet new people, form relationships of varying strength, and use others merely as a backdrop. The game’s mechanic made was the key moderator, as different mechanic encourages certain kinds of interaction while discourages others.

Steinkuehler, C. & Williams, D. (2006). Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as 'Third Places.' Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4).

The article examined the effects on social engagement of one particular increasingly popular online activity--large, collaborative online massively multiplayer online games (MMOs). In an effort to understand (a) the extent to which such virtual worlds are structurally similar to "third places" for informal sociability, and (b) their potential function in terms of social capital, the authors drew on both the media effects analysis, which revealed broad and significant patterns of MMQ use and effect, and cognitive research, which explicated the micro-level processes by which those macro-level patterns are created, maintained and transformed over time. Based on the two independent lines of MMO research, the authors presented a theoretical framework for understanding the form and function of MMOs. It is concluded that by providing spaces for social interaction and relationships beyond the workplace and home, MMOs have the capacity to function as one form of a new "third place" for informal sociability. Participation in such virtual "third places" appears particularly well suited to the formation of bridging social capital—social relationships that, while not usually providing deep emotional support, typically function to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews.

My Reaction

What do you see as *the* strong pull towards online socializing?

One of the most attractive features of online socializing is the easy access to others. Everyone could tremendous expand their circle of socializing through online community. It is much easier to find someone who shares the same interest as you, to interact with someone you will never have a chance to meet before. Online socialization and communication is freed from the limit of time and place. It makes possible the interactions which is previously impossible.
Another feature that makes online socializing attractive is that online communication can magnify certain aspects of the participants and make some other aspects less visible. As Wallace pointed out, people’s status is less visible in online communities, while the expertism turned out to be more evident. Therefore, some of those who are disadvantaged in the face-to-face socialization, might benefit tremendously from interacting with people in online environment.

Discussion Questions (My Questions)

What is the implication of online community for education?

How do the various educational online communities work? What motivates people in participating in these educational online communities?

Tech Immersion Project - Progress Report (continued)

It’s been about a month since I got my e-pet. In order to keep my pet alive and happy, and to increase her strength and skills, I have a lot to do. Basically, what I needed to do is to owe Neopoints, so that I can use the virtual money to purchase food, carry out exchanges, buy pets and toys for my pet, build and decorate houses, acquire equipment to compete with other characters or play in the Battledome. These activities are often located in a variety of ‘worlds’ located in a place called ‘Neopia’. Taking care of my pet is a painstaking process. I have to play a lot of silly computer games to owe neopoints, though I am not a game lover at all. The price for food is very high, at least for me. I have to play hard! Even when I get enough Neopoints, buying food is difficult too. Usually, the cheapest food goes very fast. So very often, when I happily found that there was one type of food I can afford and clicked on the food, it showed up that I was late, and the food was sold! However, I feel relieved and happy when I fed my pet with delicious food or bought her a book to read or a pet to play with. My RongQiuQiu is becoming happy and strong under my care. It is interesting that I clearly know there is no real living creature there. My pet RongQiuQiu is just a few lines of scripts. But I feel the existence of her. I cannot stop playing games for even one day, because I know if I don’t owe money, she will have no food to eat. I hate to make her hungry. I was wondering whether I have to take as much effort if I just keep a real pet. I was also wondering which pet would bring me more fun, the real one or the virtual one.

Week 10 Constructing the Other (Part II)

Articles Read

Turkle, S. (1995). Aspects of the self. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 177-209). New York: Simon & Schuster.

Turkle, S. (1995). TinySex and gender trouble. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 210-232). New York: Simon & Schuster.

Sherman, R. C., End, C., Krann, E., Cole, A., Campbell, J., Klausner, J., Birchmeier, Z. (2001). Metaperception in cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 4(1), 123-129.

McDonough, J. P. (1999). Designers selves: Construction of technologically mediated identity within graphical, multiuser, virtual environments. Journal of American Society for Information Science, 50(10), 859-869.

Article Summaries

Turkle, S. (1995). Aspects of the self. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 177-209). New York: Simon & Schuster.

In this chapter, Turkle told us several stories of MUDders, and explored the relation of playing MUD and psychological growth. MUDs provide worlds for anonymous social interaction where you can play various roles. They blur the boundaries of self and role, real and virtual. For some people, the use MUDs as a way to work through their real life problems, for some others they used MUDs to “act out” the real life difficulties, which may or may not lead to bringing possible solutions to real life problems. Turkle’s conclusion is that MUDs are highly evocative and provide much grist for the mill of a psychodynamic therapeutic process. If “acting out” is going to happen, MUDs are relatively safe places. But it is also true that, taken by themselves, virtual communities will only sometimes facilitate psychological growth. Though it provides us opportunities for self-discovery, and even self-transformation, sometimes, such experiences fail to help us to resolve tensions in the real world, just like unsuccessful psychotherapy.

Turkle, S. (1995). TinySex and gender trouble. Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the Internet (pp. 210-232). New York: Simon & Schuster.

In this chapter, Turkle explored the common phenomenon of virtual gender-swapping. As she found out one strong motivation to gender-swap is to have TinySex as a creature of another gender. It is an opportunity to explore conflicts raised by one’s biological gender. In addition, by enabling people to experience what it “feels” like to be the opposite gender or to have no gender at all, the practice encourages reflection on the way ideas about gender shape our expectations. Virtual sex is also the centerpiece of many people’s online experience. TinySex raises the question of what is at the heart of sex and fidelity, and it raises the question of how we communicate with our children about this.

Sherman, R. C., End, C., Krann, E., Cole, A., Campbell, J., Klausner, J., Birchmeier, Z. (2001). Metaperception in cyberspace. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 4(1), 123-129.

The study was to compare meta-accuracy of WWW homepage creators to meta-accuracy of people in face-to-face interactions. It was found that the participants assumed that others’ impressions based on homepages were more positive than they really were, and that others saw them as more more likeable and having more in common with then than was the case. In contrast, participants in the brief face-to-face interactions were rather accurate in gauging the impression others formed of them. It was also demonstrated that the source of online inaccuracy seems to be lie in people’s belief that others develop the same impression of them in both online and offline contexts. In fact, perceivers are significantly influenced by whether the information they are receiving is based on face-to-face interaction or on cues obtained from a WWW homepage, and tend to develop less positive impressions on the basis of WWW homepages than on the basis of brief face-to-face interactions.

McDonough, J. P. (1999). Designers selves: Construction of technologically mediated identity within graphical, multiuser, virtual environments. Journal of American Society for Information Science, 50(10), 859-869.

This paper examined the designers’ actions affecting identity performance within graphical virtual environments and the manner in which those decisions interact with larger social contexts of dominance based on race, class, and gender. It was found that designers’ inscriptions of their users within software are constantly evolving. In addition, the way designers’ own identities and social location may influence users’ construction of identities within the systems those designers create. The author also provided four pieces of suggestions for the designers on how designers may approach the construction of virtual environments without unwittingly contributing to patterns of dominance in society.

My Reaction

Take an issue in any of these readings and talk about how you have seen it play out in your second life experience (with others).

I had the experience of pretending to be a male with popular instant message software in China. It was usually the rule that if you were girl, there would be 3 to 5 people invite you to chat with them within five minutes. But if you were a boy, you had to reach out and invited other people. Nobody would invite you first. So I found who was online, added them as my friends (All I added were “girls”.), and invited them to chat. In many times, they took no notice of me. Not surprising! They had too many invitations. But there were times when I was lucky. As I chatted, I found I should very often take the initiative: to start a topic, to ask a question, and to control the directions of conversation, which I seldom did when I was chatting as a girl. What’s more, sometimes I intentionally tried to be firm, and to be aggressive. If you were timid and gentle, girls would just ignore you. There were too many polite “gentleman” online. However, being firm, aggressive, and sometimes perhaps a little bit impolite would attract their attention more quickly and also raise their curiosity, so that those “girls” would like to talk with you more. It was interesting that even in the virtual world, I am such an easy going, non-aggressive, polite girl. But at that time, as I was pretending to be a male, I turned out to be someone quite contrary to the real life me. At that moment, I felt myself as a strong, confidence, and aggressive male.

Questions for Discussion (My Questions)

1. When we are constructing a virtual “me”, how can we make sure that our experience on cyberspace help us with real world problems instead of worsening the situation?

2. What is moral or immoral in the cyberspace? How much deception is acceptable, and how much is immoral?