Dear Ben & others, you asked what 'personal goals' like getting status and making contacts have to do with structural properties of e-groups: the point is that structural properties of electronic groups can influence whether active participation in electronic discussions can be a successful means for a researcher to obtain status or to make new contacts. We do not have to regard a researcher's goal to make new contacts or to gain reputation as personal in nature. These are social goals that are induced by the research system and its career system. If we assume that obtaining reputation and making contacts, to some extent, are intrumental for every researcher's career advancement, the question is which properties of electronic groups link the pursuing of these goals to active participation in e- discussions. An example: Let's assume that a researcher's active participation in e-discussions is driven by the wish to obtain reputation in the academic system. We could then expect that academic mailing lists that are embedded in well-integrated research communities with face-to-face meetings stimulate active participation more than academic mailing list consisting of a less integrated community of researchers, since in the latter you cannot obtain much reputation that is helpful for your career advancement. The idea that a hope for reciprocity may stimulate participation in discussions of electronic group can be traced back to <paraindent><param>out</param><color><param>0100,0100,0100</param><FontFamily><param>Times New Roman</param>Thorn BK, Connolly T. 1987. "Discretionary Data Bases: A Theory and Some Experimental Findings." <italic>Communication Research</italic> 14(5):512-28</paraindent> <FontFamily><param>Arial</param>We can use different models based on different ideas about what drives participation in e-discussions (reputation, contacts, hope for reciprocity) for deriving hypotheses about which structural properties of electronic groups stimulate active participation. </color>I elaborated and tested a number of like-wise hypotheses in my thesis (see last email). Best wishes, Uwe <color><param>0000,0000,0000</param>
Uwe,
Sorry if I'm being dense, but you say first that your focus is more on the
significant structural properties of electronic groups (eg their
embeddedness in face-to-face networks), but then go on to outline the
influences on active participation that are very much more personal in
nature - hope for reciprocity, status and contact.
Could you clarify.
Thanks,
ben
----- Original Message -----
From: "Uwe Matzat" <<u.matzat@t-online.de>
To: <<air-l@aoir.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 4:33 PM
Subject: [Air-l] Re: Lurking
I am busy wading through my saved emails - that's the reason I
react so lately to the thread on lurking in electronic group
discussions.
In December I finished my Ph.D. thesis at the Department of
Sociology, University of Groningen (the Netherlands) which is of
interest for those analyzing 'lurking' or active participation in
electronic discussions.
The thesis contributes to answering the question under which
conditions some electronic groups on the Internet reach a high
degree of active member participation (posting) in group
discussions while other Internet groups fail to involve many
members.
The focus is more on structural properties of the electronic group
(e.g. does it stimulate the discussion if an electronic group is
embedded in face-to-face networks of researchers?) than on
properties of individuals (e.g. does it stimulate the discussion if a
member is an altruist?) that faciliate the involvement of members in
group discussions.
You don't have to read the whole book. In chapters 5 and 6 of the
book, three models for explaining the active participation of
researchers in discussions of academic mailing lists are presented
and empirically tested. These models rely on three different basic
arguments about which incentives influence the provision of help
and information in discussions of electronic groups:
1. a hope for reciprocity
2. the goal to obtain some status in the research community
3. the goal to make new contacts to other researchers
Since these models are instruments for finding out what are crucial
structural properties, they leave out ideas about altruistic
motivations, like group attachment etc, that could stimulate group
discussions.
Matzat, U. (2001). Social Networks and Cooperation in Electronic
Communities. A theoretical-empirical Analysis of Academic
Communication and Internet Discussion Groups. Amsterdam:
Thela Publishers (ISBN 90-367-1541-5)
The models make use of economic price-theory in a very simple
way, so that the reasoning and results are understandable for
Internet researcher who may not be familiar with micro-economics.
By the way, the book is also online available at the university
library of the University of Groningen :-):
Best wishes,
Uwe
PS: The project information on my web-site is not yet up-dated. I
am sorry!
<nofill> -------------------------------------------------- Uwe Matzat ICS / Department of Sociology University of Groningen Grote Rozenstr. 31 NL-9712 TG Groningen Tel: (+31)/(0)50/363-6237 Fax: (+31)/(0)50/363-6226 EMail: U.Matzat@PPSW.RUG.NL Social Networks & academic Internet Discussion Groups: http://www.ppsw.rug.nl/~matzat --------------------------------------------------