I believe that looking at reputation networks is close to your research question. Paul Resnick offered a bibliography in 2004 "Reputation Research Network." http://web.si.umich.edu/reputations/ http://web.si.umich.edu/reputations/bib/bib.html My reasoning is that people often post to networks to boost their reputations. Clearly this would be a motivation for some. Lots of research has been done in this area already so it may be necessary to distinguish the motivation of reputation from other motivations. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD. Special Projects, Faculty of Arts & Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Mobile +(61) (0)438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/esm/staff/pages/drall/ "Darker Shades of Royal" Exhibition Opening SAT 27 Feb. 1-3 PM Northern Rivers Community Arts Gallery, 44 Cherry Street, Ballina NSW 2478 --- On Wed, 3/2/10, MARIA AMPARO LASEN DIAZ <alasen@cps.ucm.es> wrote: __________________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo!7: Catch-up on your favourite Channel 7 TV shows easily, legally, and for free at PLUS7. www.tv.yahoo.com.au/plus7