Computer-Mediated
Communication
Online Communities and the Symbolic
Construction of Community
Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore
//
6 February 2013
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Final project schedule
 We will facilitate in-class group discussion
of project ideas…starting today!
 A project description/report will be due
halfway through the semester (e.g., midMarch)
 Final Projects will be presented and due as
the single deliverable for the course.
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More Final Project Examples!
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A few examples of project types:
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Design, prototype or build a novel CMC system
Experiment using a CMC system
Analyze or visualize interaction in a CMC system
Research a specific CMC system or domain of systems
and collect empirical data (interviews, small survey, etc).
Importantly, everyone should:
(1) build on a strong theoretical foundation
(2) use this foundation to justify the solution
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Final Project Ideas Shared Doc:
http://tinyurl.com/bbtx7xh
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It’s a pre-barn dance social!
2/8/12
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Community
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“Classic” Conception of Community
(The Chicago School)
“Organic Solidarity”
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“Mechanical Solidarity”
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The ‘Myths’ of Community
Simplicity and F2F
“…the anatomy of social life at the microlevel is more intricate, and no less revealing,
than among … the macro-level”
Egalitarianism
“…community generates multitudinous
means of making evaluative distinctions
among its members, means of differentiating
among them…”
Inevitable Conformity
“suggests that the outward spread of
cultural influences from the centre will make
communities … less like their former
selves…[this assumes that] people are
somehow passive in relation to culture: they
receive it, transmit it, but do not create it.”
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http://itawambahistory.blogspot.com/
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Community Boundaries
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ingroup
other,
outgroup
other,
outgroup
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Symbols and Community
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Symbols versus Emblems, Signs
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Cohen on symbolic words
Justice, goodness, patriotism, duty, love,
peace, life, purity, gender…
“Their range of meanings can be glossed
over in a commonly accepted symbol —
precisely because it allows its adherents to
attach their own meanings to it. They share
the symbol, but do not necessarily share its
meanings.”
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from 37signals.com
Symbolic meaning (and variation)
within communities
“Patriotism”
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“
Symbols are effective because they are
imprecise. … They are, therefore, ideal
media through which people can speak a
‘common’ language, behave in apparently
similar ways, participate in the ‘same’
rituals, pray to the ‘same’ gods, wear
similar clothes, and so forth, without
subordinating themselves to a tyranny of
orthodoxy. Individuality and commonality
are thus reconcilable.
”
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Community Boundaries and Symbols
“Symbols do not so much express meaning as give
us the capacity to make meaning.”
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Community Boundaries and Symbols
Public face
(symbolically simple)
Private face
(symbolically complex)
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Cohen on subjectivity
“But not all boundaries, and not all the
components of any boundary, are so
objectively apparent. They may be thought
of, rather, as existing in the minds of their
beholders. This being so, the boundary
may be perceived in rather different terms,
not only by people on opposite sides of it,
but also by people on the same side.”
— Cohen
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“…what strikes me as even more remarkable is that many of his points and general
mentality have relevance today when thinking about online communities and online
interaction more generally: in response to dichotomous and reductionist thinking
about communities, Cohen encourages us to think more deeply and open-mindedly
about the concept of community as well as the interactions, symbols, and meaning
that constitute them. This type of thinking seems apt for the contemporary period
where once again social dynamics are shifting and where traditional models of
thinking about socialization, community, culture, etc., are still being
anachronistically and unfairly applied to novel phenomena.” -Emily
“There are… issues that Cohen touches upon which I think deserve further
discussion. First, Cohen's article suggested, but did not clarify, one major question
about group boundary-making: how do symbolic boundaries serve to integrate
members of the group AND to signal the group's existence to outsiders? Symbolic
boundaries must do both, but if symbols are meaningful primarily to MEMBERS of
the group, then how do they successfully signal outsiders' exclusion?... how do
outsiders come to understand in-group meanings and interpret community
behavior? In Cohen's terms, if the public face of a group is "symbolically simple"
and private face is "symbolically complex," how does the outsider recognize or
appreciate the complexity?” -Lindsay
1/30/12
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Some questions to consider
Examples of communities in CMC and the use
of symbols?
How does a community define its
boundaries? If there have been times
when those boundaries were violated,
how did members respond?
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http://xkcd.com/802/
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Community Boundaries Online:
Facebook Newsfeed Fiasco of ‘06
“The point is, you're always
presenting the identity you want to
present - you never have to worry
about the identity you used to
present … This morning, millions of
students were shown that they can't
actually rewrite history. Everything
they do, all of the groups they join
and interests they state or friends
they make - it is all being recorded.”
(Fred Stutzman)
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Brief History and What Makes an
Online Community Anyway?
Coye Cheshire & Andrew Fiore
//
The Beginnings of Online Community…
The first large-scale online
communities were Usenet
discussion groups and
forums
- Developed around 1979
- No official structure
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http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~atf/images/treemap_all.gif
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What aspects define a community?
Common practices?
Network ties?
Symbols?
Poster to post ratio?
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Affect-laden
relationships?
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Social networks and online community
“Community emerges where the
cumulative impact of interactions
among individuals adds value above
the level of pairwise interactions.”
— Caroline Haythornthwaite
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The network perspective
People
(nodes)
Ties
(edges)
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Ties in a social network
(as modeled in SN analysis)
 Directed or undirected
 Simplex or multiplex
 Valued or unvalued
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Network approach to community
 Examines interconnections to discover where
groups exist rather than determining a priori that
a group exists based on external criteria.
 But is this a community? Or “an alliance, a
collaborative work group, a collective, a cohort”?
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Social networks and Social Capital
 Accumulate capital
 Social capital
 Knowledge capital
 Communion
… all achieved through
network ties?
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The power of social capital and the
structure of social networks
1+1=2
1 + 1 > 2?
2 + 2 > 4?
Fully connected network:
N people, N(N-1)/2 ties
Connections grow
at a much faster rate
(quadratic vs. linear)
Bridge
6 + 6 > 12?
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“…The chapter was published in 2007, and perhaps the initial framing of
the question whether or not communities can exist without physical
colocation contributed to my skepticism. I believe the author's perspective
was using a network view to understand communities, whereas I was
reading the article thinking about how it could be used to grow a
community. I was left with many unanswered questions that the author
didn't intend to answer” -Dave
“…There are upsides and downsides to social networks of course,
however I believe it is wrong to say that online communication is a threat
to the ideals of community. Society moves at the speed of technology
today and being a part of a community is the norm of todays youth and
even older generations. Online communication helps the idea of
community more than it hurts it in my opinion.” -Maurice
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Anonymity and Behavior in Online
Groups and Communities
Photo Attribution: http://mimanifesto.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/anonymous1.jpg
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Anonymity, Pseudonymity, and Identity
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Shyness and Anonymity
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Aggressiveness and Anonymity
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Group Dynamics and
Anonymity
Influence
Leadership
Status Power
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“I was most interested in the discussion of support groups, because it's a
huge part of internet life that I know nothing about. The discussion of
signaling legitimate group membership with each communication was
especially fascinating. … However, after I finished the article I was pretty
underwhelmed with it as a whole. ” -Kate
“it struck me that there could be a danger in asserting that "socially
anxious" people feel more comfortable and are therefore more confident
engaging with group members online as opposed to face-to-face
interactions offline. Though not stated, there seemed to me an implicit
assumption that these individuals can and should find solace and
community exclusively online, and thereby forgo any need to take part in
social activities offline. ” -Jennifer
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Finding Community
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Online communities are neither built nor do
they just emerge, they evolve organically and
change over time. Developers cannot control
online community development but they can
influence it.
Jenny Preece
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For next Wednesday…
Privacy and information control
 Mayer-Schonberger, V. (2009) "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the
Digital Age". Princeton University Press. (In reader.)
 Boyd, D., and Hargittai, E. Facebook Privacy Settings: Who Cares?.
In First Monday 15(8).
 Cheshire, C., Antin, J. and Churchill, E. (2010) Behaviors, Adverse
Events and Dispositions: An Empirical Study of Online Discretion and
Information Control. In Journal of the American Society for
Information Science and Technology 61(7).
Remember to write your reviews!
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