Social Networking
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Definition of SNS: “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.”
• They avoid using the term networking because it implies that people
are primarily using the sites to make new contacts as opposed to
keeping up with existing relationships
• Authors present a timeline of SNS history dating back to 1997
• Note that SNS sites differentiate themselves primarily by their
default and customizable structures related to visibility and access
• Reasons that people connect to one another are varied, and on
some sites the links are not bi-directional, so one can be a “fan” but
not necessarily a confirmed friend
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• Most approaches to technology adoption
are based on individual decision making
• Authors present a research model on
intentional social action in online social
networks
• Use the notion of collective intention
• Another objective to validate existing
measures of collective intention and to
validate three modes of social influence in
the context of social networks
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• explores the role of compliance (subjective norm),
internalization (group norm), and identification (social
identity) in explaining collective intention (we-Intention) to
participate in social networks
• We-intentions, reflecting group influences and group
influence on individual decision making is most appropriate
to understanding participation in social networks
• Definition we-intention (Tuomela) “commitment of an
individual to participate in joint action, and involves in an
implicit and explicit agreement between the participants to
engage in that joint action”
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• Some findings indicate that compliance (subjective norm) is
important in the early stages of technology acceptance and that as
the user gains experience, internalization (group norm) plays more
of a role (note: internalization used a little differently here than
Kelman’s original intent)
• Hypotheses
• “H1. A stronger subjective norm leads to a higher level of WeIntention to participate in an online social networking site.”
• “H2. Stronger group norm leads to a higher level of We-Intention to
participate in an online social networking site.
• “
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• Components of the social identity form of
influence:
– “▪ Cognitive social identity: The self-categorization
process renders the self stereotypically
interchangeable with other group members, and
stereotypically distinct from outsiders.
– ▪ Evaluative social identity: The evaluation of selfworth on the basis of belonging to a particular group.
– ▪ Affective social identity: A sense of emotional
involvement with the group, which is characterized by
identification with, involvement in, and emotional
attachment to the group.”
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• “H3. A stronger social identity leads to a higher level of
We-Intention to participate in an online social networking
site.”
– Expected significant main effects for each of the components of
social identity
• Methods
– Facebook users who responded to a solicitation on one of
several student groups on the site were instructed to think about
up to five friends they interacted with on Facebook
• Collected 389 usable online questionnaires
•
•
•
Measure of We-Intention
“
WE1: I intend that our group (i.e., the group that I identified above) interacts on
Facebook together sometime during the next 2 weeks. Dholakia et al.
WE 2: We (i.e., the group that I identified above) intend to interact on Facebook together sometime during the next 2 weeks.
(2004)
[Seven-point “Strongly disagree to Strongly agree” scale]
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Among the privacy concerns that some facebook users have is
concern about identity theft and threats to personal security
• “The overarching goal of the present research was to gain a better
understanding of what can be found in online social networking
profiles, specifically, FACEBOOK™.”
• “Apart from collecting data on the kinds of information users were
choosing to include (and exclude) in their personal profiles, the
study examines the impact of individual characteristics on the type
of information that is likely to be present in an online profile (i.e.,
information that is self-disclosed as a function of
characteristicsincluding age, gender and relationship status)”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Study 1
• Primary purpose to develop a scoring instrument for
what could be revealed on Facebook
• Sample: data from 400 randomly selected, accessible,
personal profiles from 8 Canadian FACEBOOK™
networks (four university, four community) was collected
• “a final checklist comprised of 97 dichotomously scored
items (i.e., whether the piece of information was present
or absent) and 3 identification items (i.e., username link,
the network searched, and the size of the overall
network) was constructed”
• The 400 participant profiles were rated against the
checklist
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Most disclosed: “(available on 63% or more of the profiles)
described personally identifying information (i.e., birth date, gender, profile
pictures, photo albums, tagged photos and general photos of the user) as
well social connections (i.e., groups joined, and friends viewable). In addition,
education information (college/university attended) and regular update
information(status, wall and mini-feed) were included. Finally, playful
communications such as acceptance of pokes, messages, and gifts and
applications were frequently provided”
• Least disclosed:”
key personal information (zip/postal code),
phone numbers (both land line and mobile), home address, city or town,
website and former name. Inaddition, there was also limited amount of
information provided regarding some aspects of educational experience (i.e.,
school mailbox, courses, degree, awards, and room). Finally, optional
‘‘wallfeatures” (i.e., Super Wall and Advanced Wall) market place listings”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• People on average disclosed only 25% of what it was
possible to disclose
• Study 2 explored two types of threats, identity theft and
theft to self or groups because of being associated with
certain activities or persons
• Three disclosure categories developed “The first
category reflected personal identity information, the
second involved sensitive personal information, and the
third involved potentially stigmatizing information.
Thematic analysis was conducted to construct each of
the three categories”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Used research assistants and even the police to
develop personal identity index ranging from 08: street address, city/town, postal code, gender,
birth day, birth year, profile picture and email
• Sensitive personal information “email, employer,
job position, status, mini-feed, regular wall,
profile picture, photo albums, self-selected
photos, tagged photos, message, poke, send a
gift, and friends viewable (possible scores
ranged from 0 to 14).”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Potentially stigmatizing information: “religious views, political views,
birth year, sexual orientation, photos, friends viewable, interests,
activities, favorite music, favorite movies, favorite TV shows, favorite
books, favorite quotes, and about me (possible scores ranged from
0 to 14).”
• Findings:
• 1. “Specifically, users who provided information about their gender
(present or absent), relationship status, and age disclosed more
default/standard information, more sensitive personal information,
and more potentially stigmatizing information in their online profiles
than their peers who did not disclose their gender, relationship
status or age”
• 2. “users who indicated their relationship status as either single or in
a relationship disclosed significantly more default/standard
information … and sensitive personal Information …than users who
did not indicate their relationship status”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Single users shared the most stigmatizing information, then users in
a relationship, and last those who didn’t indicate status
• No effects for age or type of network
• As age increased, disclosure decreased
• Study 3
• “Through discussion and then factor analysis , the following 11
scales were created:
• “personal information, photo and update information, work
information, education information, message and poke acceptance
(whether users allow for receipt of private messages and nudges
from other users), photo album and profile picture information, age
information, contact information, view information, other wall
presence, and relationship information”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• Findings
• “users who belonged to a community network
were more likely to include their political and
religious views in their personal profiles than
were their university network counterparts”
• “users who indicated their gender, also had
higher levels of disclosure for: personal
information, photo and update information,
education information, photo album and profile
picture information, and age information”
All about me: Disclosure in online social
networking profiles: The case of FACEBOOK
• More findings
• “males expressed more information about their political
and religious views than did females”
• “disclosing one’s relationship status was related to
higher levels of disclosure of various topics, including:
personal information, photo and update information,
photo album and profile picture information, age
information; and view information”
• “Users who disclosed their age also disclosed more
education information”
• Age predicted disclosure on 5 of the ten topics
• Single users disclosed more on most of the topics
A theoretical model of intentional social
action in online social networks
• Results
– Did structural equation modeling
• Although there was a significant chi-square, all of
the other indicators were good, indicating that the
model was a good fit to the data Model accounted
for 32% of the variance in We-Intention
• Hypotheses: all factors (except group norm) had a significant effect
on We-Intention, with subjective norm the strongest,
• “social identity is a second-order factor with cognitive social identity,
affective social identity, and evaluative social identity as secondorder factors exhibiting significant impact on We-Intention to use an
online social networking site”
• Interesting that subjective norm is still influential even after they are
actively using Facebook-counter to prediction
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Some sites which now support SN did not originally start
out that way, and their original forms varied
• Attribute decline of Friendster (although they do boast 73
million profiles on the site currently) to technology
problems, cultural clashes as the general public became
aware of the site, Fakester issues, announcement that
they would become fee-based
• Notes migration of photo and videosharing sites to SNS
• MySpace offered new features with page customization,
connection to bands, acceptance of minors
• Proliferation of non-US SNS which have received little
attention from US scholars
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Some SNS sites have thrived by restricting
public access, creating boundaries and
exclusivity of one kind or another
• Some government agencies and corporations
have restricted usage of SNS for their
employees
• Difference between SNS and earlier online
communities forums may be the organization not
around common interests but around the social
networks of individual members
• “The world is composed of networks, not groups”
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• SNS research topics
– Impression management and friendship performance
• Profiles and friendship networks as tools of identity
management; friends provide context or a backdrop for
impression formation
• Articles on this topic we’ve read include
– Tong, S. T., Van Der Heide, B., Langwell, L, & Walther, J.
(2008). Too much of a good thing? The relationship between
number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook.
– Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity
construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored
relationships.
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• SNS research topics, cont’d
– Networks and network structure-using
massive datasets collected by programs like
Fetch (from Fetch Technologies, a company
started by USC researchers) or donated by
the SNS itself
• Article on SNS networks we’ve read
– Liu, H. (2007). Social network profiles as taste
performances.
• This category could also include
typologies of users or profiles
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Researchers in this area want to understand large scale
structural features
– Ex. Backstrom et al., “Group Formation in Large Social
Networks: Membership, Growth, and Evolution,” a study of
LiveJourna,l asked:
– “What are the structural features that affect if someone will join a
particular subgroup, and
– “How does the probability of joining a subgroup p depend on the
number of friends k who are already members of the group?”
• In the groups examined p was a negatively accelerating function of
k- a law of diminishing returns in that k keeps affecting p but at an
increasingly smaller rate
• Other influential factors are not just the number of friends but, for
moderate values of k, whether or not those friends are mutually
connected to each other
• Groups with very large number of triangles of mutual friends seem
to grow more slowly
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Bridging online and offline social networks
– Primary motivation for using SNS seems to be to
connect to friends rather than to meet strangers
• How will this be affected by LBS? One of the basic findings
in social psychology of friendship is that physical proximity is
often a sufficient basis for friendship formation, while
similarity is necessary for people to maintain friendship
relationship with geographically distant others
• Reading from our syllabus
– Chan, D. K., & Cheng, G. (2004). A comparison of offline and
online friendship qualities at different stages of relationship
development.
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Privacy
– Several researchers have been interested in the extent to which
information supplied to SNS for public consumption can compromise the
privacy or the personal identity of members, particularly young people
who seem to be somewhat less concerned about privacy issues
• For example, Stutzman, “An Evaluation of Identity-Sharing Behavior
in Social Network Communities,” surveyed students using Facebook
Friendster and MySpace to found out what they were revealing about
themselves on the sites. He found that most of them thought that
maintaining privacy was very important, and were not confident that their
personal information was safe on these sites, but they were not particularly
concerned about it
• See also Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D., * Mitchell, K. (2008). Is talking online to
unknown people always risky? Distinguishing online interaction styles in a
national sample of youth internet users from our readings on “The Dark Side
of CMC”
– Are Facebook profiles public or private? Do police have the right to
“search” them?
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Other study areas
• Boundaries on SNS;
– Study conducted at Georgia Tech found that
1/3 of students surveyed did not believe
professors should be allowed on Facebook
(2006 pub date)
– Contact with professor on Facebook had no
impact, positive or negative, on ratings of
professor
boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network
sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.
• Future research
– Need for experimental, longitudinal studies
– More studies outside US
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Networks where user-owned or created content
is shared are becoming more commonplace
• Not much is known about the norms and values
surrounding the online “giving” of content for
semi-public consumption
• This would lie somewhere along a continuum
from posting a file on a web page which
anybody can access to attaching a file to email
(the private end of the continuum)
– The authors refer to this as the “Space where directed
content and social relationships co-evolve”
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Studies of contributions of end-user content
online have focused either on motivations for
sharing or on issues related to social loafing
where selfish users download but do not
contribute
• Little explicit attention to the recipient end in
terms of users’ feelings about to whom they
want to contribute
– Aspects of the sharing experience seem to have
much in common with an anthropological take on giftgiving
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Gifting: three central concepts: social bonds, otherorientedness and reciprocity
– Interesting why they chose a gift-giving perspective, as opposed
to, say, authorship, or other perspectives such as self-promotion
or desire for social influence
• Two modes of gift transfers (coercion and exchange are
not considered)
– Reciprocity
– Pure gift-giving
– Coercion and Exchange vs. Reciprocity and Pure Gift-Giving
continuum- categories arrayed along a continuum anchored by
• Self-centered motivations vs Other-oriented motivations
• Economic man vs Social bonds
• Cost–benefit vs .Reciprocal ambiguity
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Researchers are interested in the end of the continuum
where it is uncertain whether or if you will get something
in return, and if so, what you will get
• Digital goods have the characteristic that you can give
them without losing them, and that once you give them
you lose control over how they are distributed to others
• Affordances of Internet allow digital goods to be
transferred at little or no cost
• Sharing networks are increasingly taking on a social
component which factors into how and with whom goods
are shared (e.g. influenced by the existence of affinity
groups and subnetworks) as well as on the willingness to
engage in pure gifting as opposed to exchange or
reciprocity
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Research questions: what end-user concerns
characterize semipublic content contributions on the
Internet?
– what is given, to whom, how, and why
– Authors looked at Flickr, a photo-sharing network
• Principal activities consist of uploading photos, tagging (applying
metadata to photos)
• Tags can be searched, result in user-generated “folksonomies” or
taxonomy of pictures
• Users can look at photos bookmarked as favorites by others as well
as others’ contacts
• Users can get comments on their photos, and there are feedback
mechanisms including popularity ratings
• Users can create groups
• On Flickr, social networks emerge from sharing of material
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Data:
– Analyzed 760 forum posts (no details on how
these were selected were provided)
– Did follow-up interviews with 17 users
– Used a sort of grounded theory process using
the whom, what, how and why categories for
coding, while looking for emergent features
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Results
• What: Social content and metadata
• “Novice users quickly became aware that when providing
material for others in a networked environment, you are
also exposing links to other files, metadata,
conversations, persons or even networks and vividly
described difficulties and concerns they had when facing
this fact”
– Ex. Being OK with making their photos public but not the tags,
especially if tagged with the names of friends or other users
– Ex. That their pictures could be used in somebody else’s offsite
blog with a track back to them on Flickr-allowed unathorized
people to have a path into your life
– Ex. Concerns about visibility of contacts-friends might have
photos they don’t want their parents to see
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Other concerns
– Not being able to upload photos anonymously
– Being named as a contact whether you liked it or not
– Wanting to make friends’ comments on photos
separately not viewable by family (and perhaps vice
versa)
– So any discussion of end—user digital content needs
to include the associated metadata like tags, including
the social metadata (network of contacts, friends’
comments on photos, etc)
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Whom: recipients and their relationships
• A flaw in Flickr was that the level of settings for privacy
was not graduated enough-ex. Friends and family
lumped together, only a few categories (public, contacts,
friends and family, private)
• Ex. Child of divorce has photos with Mom’s side of
family, Dad’s side and don’t want to subject one to the
other but still want to share photos with family
• Groups were used to address certain pictures to
particular groups of recipients on a long-term basis but
was not a good solution for short-term or one-time
occasions
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Groups often subdivided into splinter groups
who did not subscribe to the rules of the larger
group about what sorts of pictures could be
posted
• How: sociotechnical means
– Dealing with the issues of not being able to precisely
and on-the-fly control the recipients for pictures led
people to either develop technical workarounds,
which may have led them offsite, or to simply refrain
from posting
– Wanted a mechanism for “banning”-making public
material semi-public if the content was offensive
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• Why: semi-public motivations
–
–
–
–
–
–
did not want to trouble others with nonrelevant goods;
receivers requested it
an offline (intimate) social bond
perceived similarities with receivers
intended a (personalized) experience with the goods;
experienced a conflict of interest between different
receiving relations and groups
– the gift, if provided publicly, might produce requests
for additional gifts
Skageby (2008), Semi-public end-user content
contributions—A case-study of concerns and
intentions in online photo-sharing
• People need to be able to put relations into silos
(sometimes temporary) and to “gift material in excludable
ways”
• Need to be able to “control the digital rights”
• The presence of tags, links, commenting mechanisms,
publishing photos straight to blogs, etc. all raise the
costs of gifting
• The association of the photos with all of this metadata
increases the likelihood of a desire for semi-public gifting
and technical mechanisms to support it
• Some users wanted to be able to make it clear that their
photos were in the public domain and free for anyone to
use for any purpose
• Interesting to think about their data from a perspective
other than gifting, say impression management or selfas-source
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user behavior:
Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
• Focus on hugely popular Korean site which nearly 90% of
young people use
• Applies a modified TAM model adding in the concepts of
synchronicity, involvement, and flow as enhancing
constructs to predict users’ attitudes toward and intention
to use Cyworld
• A user’s personal space on Cyworld is called a
“minihompy” and it features blogging, photos, message
board, guest book, personal bulletin board, and a room for
their avatar, a mini-me
• Users can link to other users minihompys
• Users can buy clothes for their avatars, furnishings for
their rooms, and other accoutrements
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
• Technology acceptance model
– Offshoot of theory of reasoned action
– Attitude toward an action, subjective norm both
influence behavioral intention
– Behavioral intention is known to be a strong predictor
of actually taking an action
– Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are
major factors influencing behavioral intention to use a
technology; didn’t see ease of use in this application
– Three new variables specific to Cyworld incorporated
into the model: synchronicity, involvement, and flow
experience
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
• Hypotheses:
•
•
•
•
•
H6: There is a positive relationship
between perceived involvement and
H1: Attitude toward Cyworld is
positively related to the intention to perceived enjoyment.
H7: There is a positive relationship
use Cyworld.
H2: There is a positive relationship between perceived involvement and
between perceived usefulness and attitude toward Web2.0. (?)
H8: There is a positive relationship
intention to use Cyworld.
H3: There is a positive relationship between perceived synchronicity
between perceived usefulness and and perceived usefulness.
attitude toward Cyworld.
H9: There is a positive relationship
H4: There is a positive relationship between perceived synchronicity
between perceived enjoyment and and attitude toward Cyworld.
intention to use Cyworld.
H10: Flow experience has a strong
H5: There is a positive relationship effect on intention to use Cyworld
between perceived enjoyment and
attitude toward Cyworld.
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
• Got a sample of 950 home pages using the “random
home page finder” feature of Cyworld (now that’s
convenient! Wonder how “random” it really is)
• Posted recruitment information and a copy of the survey
instrument on the users’ bulletin boards (wow, this is a
researcher’s dream! Especially when combined with the
nonymity feature which ties the user to a state issued ID
number)
• 352 respondents completed the survey for a very good
response rate of 37% (by my calculations; the
researchers claim a response rate of 43.3% (maybe some
confusion here as to whether this represented a total after
a second wave of posting surveys)
• No information is provided on how concepts were
measured, reliability of measure, etc.
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
• Results
– Used SEM to analyze the data
– The author does not report the chi-square result for
some reason (probably significant given such a large
sample size?) but the other indicators suggest that the
model is a good fit
– Eight of the ten hypotheses were supported, and two
rejected (some of the significance levels were p<.10
which is not a very stringent criterion)
– Rejected hypotheses were the direct paths from
perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment to
intention to use Cyworld
– Perceived usefulness is usually a good predictor in
TAM studies
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
Flow is out
here all alone
Shin, D., & Kim, W. (2008). Applying the technology
acceptance model and flow theory to Cyworld user
behavior: Implication of the Web2.0 user acceptance.
•
•
•
•
•
There is an error on page 381 where instead of saying that perceived
usefulness and perceived enjoyment would mediate the relationship
between perceived synchronicity and perceived intention, the text states
perceived involvement.
The only variable which had a direct effect on behavioral intention was
perceived flow
The effects of perceived synchronicity and perceived involvement on
intention were mediated by perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment
However, the direct effects of perceived synchronicity and involvement on
attitude were stronger than their mediated effects through, respectively,
perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment
Lack of direct effect of usefulness and enjoyment on intention to use
suggests that maybe there is something different about this particular
technology that requires a higher level of usefulness or enjoyment to predict
regular use
– It may be that since everybody uses Cyworld it is a less discretionary choice and
you may not need to enjoy it or even find it particularly useful to feel you need to
use it?
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets.
• Grooming, Gossip, and Online Friending
• Are social networks sites going to provide the tools that are needed
to be able to efficiently expand the scale of one’s social networks?
• Presumably there are limits to the number of contacts one can
manage f2f or through conventional means
– While apes use grooming to nourish and maintain their social ties, they
can only pick so many lice
– Humans are able to use language to accomplish many of the same
relational formation and maintenance tasks, but again their resources to
do this are limited given the many demands of daily living
– Author argues that although tools like email enable you to keep in touch
with or send news to multiple others, there is a greater need to be able
to keep up with the news of others in context, to learn about their
relationships, and to have a basis for the development of trust
– These are the services that social networks would seek to provide,
enabling social networks of much greater scale
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets.
• Author’s goal to offer a theoretical framework for
assessing the potential of SNS to transform
social relations and to provide guidance to
designers for making SNS better social tools
• The analysis is based on signaling theory, which
“models why some communications are reliably
honest and others are not”
• Thus a central focus is on how SNS can more
fully address the issue of interpersonal trust,
particularly as it affects the establishment of
reliable identity
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets.
• Signaling theory
– The extent to which we require communications to be
scrupulously honest is highly variable and depends
on the consequences of dishonesty in a particular
context
– On a message board talking about sports it may not
matter so much as it would on, say, a forum talking
about brain cancer
– To be a reliable signal, the costs of deceptively
producing the signal must outweigh the benefits.
• What types of signals and situations bring this about?
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• assessment signals to produce the signal you have to
possess the quality
• "Strategic" or "handicap" signals You show that you have
a lot of something by conspicously wasting it, such as
light a cigar with $100 bills
– Only reliable as to the cost of the specific display (the smoker
may have used up the entire week’s pay on that cigar) and not to
any other qualities
– Conventional signals are indicators like age or gender that are
not inherently reliable but can be checked for authenticity
• A ring on the left hand, fourth finger, is a conventional signal but it
can be worn by single people to ward off unwanted attentions, or left
off by potential cheaters, and there will be people in the individual’s
social world who will know whether the signal is accurate or not
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• Signals can vary with respect to how costly deception is
– It may not be very costly to describe yourself on your profile as
“fun-loving” or show yourself in a photo at a party, but it may be
very costly to describe yourself as tall and blonde, both in terms
of those in your network who know you to be dark and petite, in
the effort required to find a picture that will confirm the
description, and in the disappointment persons who meet you for
the first time and discover that you have exaggerated
• SNS can invent ways to make it more costly to be
dishonest (for example to claim someone as a contact
when they’re not really known to you) but people can
usually find a way to circumvent these precautions
– Requiring confirmation of the friendship should make it more
costly, but in fact most people don’t like to reject friend requests
and agree even if they barely know someone or think they might
know them
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• Trust and Identity in Large Mobile Societies
• Can SNSs provide a means for extending trust and assessing
reliability?
– Theoretically the links to others provide a means for vetting, although if
all of the friends are in on it or approve of it a person can provide a
completely false persona on the profile with the sanction and complicity
of the friend network
– The social context provided by friend networks helps to resolve
ambiguities and offers evidence of how one treats social relations and is
treated by them-you are tied to the identity developed within that nexus
of social contacts
– One of the greatest benefits of SNS is to add trust to weak ties
– Weak ties can be extremely beneficial in connecting you to useful
resources and persons you would not otherwise encounter
– Site designs that make adding contacts too easy compromise the trust
aspect of social networks
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
– It’s a good idea to increase the “costs” of indiscriminately creating
links, such as penalizing people for too many declined links, or
allowing people to whom you link the ability to post on your page
(you should know them reasonably well to have confidence that
you won’t be embarrassed by what they post)
• Types of Relationships
– The combination of strong ties to provide a context for trust, and a
network of heterogeneous weak ties to extend access to persons
and resources beyond the immediate social circle suggests that
the possibility of creating a social supernet is viable
– Mere presence of a friend link is not very informative
– More information about the closeness of a relationship can be
gleaned from other activities such as wall posts, comments on
each others posts, videos, photos, mutual tagging, etc
– Time spent on maintaining the relationship digitally may signal
closeness or just somebody with time on their hands
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• Reducing receiver costs
– Time spent carefully checking out potential friends
before accepting them may be paid for by freedom
from spam or unwanted posts on ones profile page
– Applications which visualize social networks may help
to reduce the costs of vigilance in assessing the
reliability of information about a potential contact
– Would have the effect of making people more aware
of the impression created not just by their profile but
also by the totality of their network connections
– Could also make things like the homogeneity or
heterogenity of one’s network visible, as well as the
frequency of one’s contact with network members or
other indicators
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• Fashion and the Display of Information-Based
Status
– Being in fashion/at the forefront with respect to
applications signals status, innovativeness and
“fitness” in the constantly evolving online world
• Information Exposure: Signaling Imperviousness
– Posting risky or too revealing information is a way of
signaling imperviousness to danger, demonstrating
cool in the sense of composure and fearlessness
– Or they may just be stupid
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
People no longer need personal
relationships to meet their basic survival
needs (?)
The strengths of SNS may lie in their ability
to provide access to information while
helping them to maintain a socially local
network of relationships (strong plus weak
ties, bridging and bonding, etc)
Donath (2007). Signals in Social Supernets
• The current generation of teens who are ubiquitously
connected to IM, MySpace, etc. have acquired and
continue to invent and appropriate entirely new ways to
use the media they consume, particularly SNS, to
indicate and infer popularity, their friends and romantic
interests, and social skill
• Their breakups and makeups are there for the whole
world to follow if they wish it to be so
• SNS may reduce anonymity and loneliness
• LB MoSoSos in particular may leverage physical
proximity to provide a context and occasion for new
relationship formation
• Novelty and the continuous updating of personal
information about one’s contacts may be sufficient to
keep people connected to SNS and make the social
supernet idea feasible
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube.
• Defines SNS in terms of the ability to publicly
articulate connections between people
• The presence of the connection and not the
nature or strength of the connection is what is
made explicit
• Connections can be made through varying
media
• These media circuits could be made through the
telephone, as in immigrants from Mexico staying
in touch with loved ones at home, or through
sharing videos with a subset of friends on
YouTube
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• On YouTube, sharing videos with one set of friends and
not with others indicates that there are different media
circuits in operation, and there are different social
configurations
• People share technically substandard video on YouTube
for the same reasons they IM, not to impart high quality
information but to display affinity
• Private vs. public-what is hidden or withdrawn vs. what is
open and accessible; also, what is individual vs. what is
collective
• Both of these factors can be applied to video; how much
information is available about the individual, and with
whom (and how many) the information is shared (to
whom it “belongs”)
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Fractalization(?) of the public and private
• Who can access, manipulation and distribute information
differs greatly by context, so what is private in one context
could rightly be viewed as public in another
• Use the image of a fractal, as a larger image which, when
you inspect its component parts, has smaller versions of
the larger one, and still smaller versions, etc
– A somewhat strained metaphor (rooms in homes are private
spaces within homes; homes are private spaces within
neighborhoods; then it sort of breaks down….
– :Gal, ‘‘Whatever the local, historically specific content of the
dichotomy, the distinction between public and private can be
reproduced repeatedly by projecting it onto narrower contexts or
broader ones’’
– Video sharing practices “subdivide in ways that reflect different
relationship dynamics and social networks:
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Method
– Used a combination of qualitative methods
including semi-structured interviews and
observations of postings, examination of
subscription and friending practices, attending
events and meetups
– 54 interviewees ranging in age from 9 to 43
– Lot of method variance-used phone, IM, and
f2f methods to interview people
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Used personal acquaintances of the researchers
as subjects, which is not really the done thing
although the farther out their networks they
traveled the less it would be an issue
• Asked them questions about pros and cons of
posting on YouTube, about the people they
friended, difference between subscribing and
friending, if they knew the people who
commented on their videos, etc.
• Some were highly visible posters, YouTube
celebrities, and some were scarcely known
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Findings
• Some media circuits reinforced social relationships that
began in person, e.g. family members commenting on
each other’s videos
• People can complete media circuits to unknown others
and expand their networks by posting videos for
unknown others to see, or by commenting on videos
posted by unknown others
• YouTube posters can expand or limit access to their
videos by tagging in narrow ways (e.g. using your name
as a tag) or by restricting access to friends only
• Some friends who do not know each other well may
make videos together and become friends (? How often
does this happen?)
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Technical issues don’t matter much
– Creating and circulating videos is a process of
defining and maintaining social networks
– The public end of the continuum
• Some video makers are quite public about their identity and
make every effort to get a broad swath of the public to view
their work including making their content appear to be as
broadly relevant as possible
– The private end of the continuum
• Others keep their identity as video makers to themselves,
target the content very narrowly, and restrict viewing to only a
small group of friends
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Some video makers may be publicly private, in that they
reveal their identity but tag the content narrowly or
cryptically or not at all or restrict who can view it
• Some people post video that is intended only for a
handful of insiders publicly, because they don’t want to
require them to have accounts to view the videos, which
are required of “friends”
• The same poster could vary widely in terms of how
publicly private they might be; some videos might be
tagged in such a way as to invite broad viewing even
though most are ‘restricted’ to friends by their very
narrow or cryptic tagging
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Privately public
• Videosharers keep their identity private but use tagging
and public access to share the video as widely as
possible, attract comment, etc
– Can also accomplish this through various techniques internal to
the video such as distorting voices on the video, wearing masks,
not speaking, etc.
– Want to stay anonymous so as not to attract attention from the
workplace or encourage stalkers, among other motives for
wanting to remain anonymous, or because one is engaging in
activities that are best kept secret like surprising people
• “When he [CT] makes videos with RJ, he reveals his face, name,
and location. Yet when he made theVlad film, he withheld that
information and sought more ‘‘privately public’’ connections to new
fans”
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• Example of MadV, who encourages viewing by picking
topics with broad appeal and friending generously
– People pick up symbols from his videos and reproduce them in
other social situations, extending his media circuit and
expanding the influence of his social networks
– People who make hateful comments or who try to reveal his
identity are removed from subscriber lists and their comments
deleted
– He does not initiate friend requests or subscribe to other’s
channels, and he is firmly at the center of his social network
• Note that on MadV’s channel page he has a link to the
JCMC article!
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately
public: Social networking on YouTube
• When YouTube was acquired by Google, the
tags that were attached to videos then became
part of the search process and the video might
be more easily found and more frequently
viewed
• “On YouTube, frequent interaction between
video makers and viewers is a core component
of participation on the site. Viewers and
commenters are often themselves video makers,
who comment with the strategic intent of forming
social relationships with others who will support
their work”
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks and
Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
• Displaying your connections on a social networking site is a way of
providing a warrant for your claims to your identity (Donath and
boyd)
• Social networking sites are distinct from earlier versions like
newsgroups etc in that they provide a way for you to extend your
offline social networks as well as meet new people-e.g. in the older
groups the trajectory was from online meeting based around shared
interests to offline meetings, whereas here there is movement in the
other direction as well in order to maintain or strengthen or extend
existing relationships
• Geographical orientation of sites like Facebook may serve to enrich
social capital in offline networks
– Fewer people play with identities due to the tie to real-world existing
connections
– Donath and boyd hypothesize that sites like Facebook could increase
an individuals’ number of weak ties, if not strengthen strong ties, eg.
Increase social capital (information, connections, opportunities)
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks and
Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
•
•
•
•
Bourdieu and Wacquant--social capital as “the sum of the resources, actual
or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a
durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual
acquaintance and recognition”
“For individuals, social capital allows individuals to benefit in a variety of
ways in that participation in a social network allows a person to draw on
resources from other members of the network and to leverage connections
from multiple social contexts. These resources can take the form of
important information, employment opportunities, personal relationships, or
the capacity to organize groups (Paxton, 1999). Access to individuals
outside one’s close circle provides access to non-redundant information,
resulting in benefits such as employment connections” (p. 7, Ellison et al)
Networks in which there are not direct links between all participants, what
are called structural holes, are actually more efficient for the diffusion of
information because of supporting the transfer of information between
subgroups or from groups were it is old news to groups where it is new and
useful
Distinction between bridging social capital which is provided by social
networks and bonding social capital (Putnam)
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks
and Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
• Subjects were 286 undergrads at MSU
• Were surveyed for demographic information,
Facebook intensity (no. of friends, typical daily
amount of time on the site, attachment to an
integration into Facebook community), purposes
of using Facebook (information, entertainment,
looking up people, making new friends),
perceived critical mass, self-esteem and
satisfaction with life at college, measures of
social capital (bridging, bonding, high school)
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks
and Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
• Findings
• Who is using Facebook? High penetration Almost all of the
students were, and there were few differences between the ones
who were and weren’t except that the weren’ts were a little
older/more likely to be off campus, had significantly higher high
school social capital although not the other two types
• How were they using it? Reported an average of 10-30 minutes a
day and 150-200 friends; for fun and killing time rather than
gathering information, more for interacting with offline friends than
meeting new people, especially keeping up with high school friends
• Facebook appeared to have a large impact on student’s ability to
develop bridging social capital on campus
• Facebook use especially helpful in increasing social capital for those
with low self-esteem and low satisfaction with student life
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks
and Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
• Bonding social capital also predicted by
Facebook intensity
• General Internet use not related to social capital
measures except for high school social capital
• Usage characterized primarily as offline to online
movement to strengthen and extend existing
offline relationships
– Features like the “birthday greeting” feature which
was provided by the site were useful for increasing
bonding social capital
Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks
and Social Capital:The Role of Facebook
• Haythornthwaite (2005) new media “create latent tie
connectivity among group members that provides the
technical means for activating weak ties” (p. 125). Latent
ties are those social network ties that are “technically
possible but not activated socially” (p. 137). Facebook
enables participants to capitalize on weak ties (such as
“friending” a friend of a friend) and convert latent ties to
weak ties (such as looking up the profile of someone in a
shared class and finding mutual areas of interest and
possible discussion topics).”
• These weak ties will provide new information and new
opportunities