A late response to your request for references on weak ties and cyberspace ... there are a few 'classic' studies of weak ties and email by Feldman, and Constant, Kiesler & Sproull (see references below). Some of the communities of practice literature also addresses weak tie usefulness via CMC (e.g., see Teigland). May I also recommend my own most recent paper in The Information Society on how media can support and connect people with different tiers of tie strength. The paper in New Media and Society also addresses the usefulness of non-strong ties in connectivity among groups of online users. For more on the way "people adopt and adapt to the Internet to maintain their personal communities" see the collected papers in The Internet in Everyday Life, or earlier versions of half the book's contents in the American Behavioral Scientist (which could be available online through your university's subscriptions). /Caroline Caroline Haythornthwaite (haythorn@uiuc.edu) Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Refs: Haythornthwaite, C. (2002). Strong, weak and latent ties and the impact of new media. The Information Society, 18(5), 385-401. Haythornthwaite, C. (2000). Online personal networks: Size, composition and media use among distance learners. New Media and Society, 2(2), 195-226. Feldman, M. (1987). Electronic mail and weak ties in organizations. Office: Technology and People, 3, 83-101. Constant, D., Kiesler, S.B., & Sproull, L.S. (1996). The kindness of strangers: The usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice. Organization Science, 7(2), 119-135. Pickering, J.M. & King, J.L. (1995). Hardwiring weak ties: Interorganizational computer-mediated communication, occupational communities, and organizational change. Organization Science, 6(4), 479-486. Sarbaugh-Thompson, Marjorie & Feldman, Martha (1998). Electronic Mail and Organizational Communication: Does Saying "Hi" Really Matter? Organization Science, 9 (6), 685-698. Teigland, R. (2000). Communities of practice at an Internet firm: Netovation vs. on-time performance. In E.L. Lesser, M.A. Fontaine & J.A. Slusher (Eds.). Knowledge and Communities. Boston, MA: Butterworth Heinemann. Haythornthwaite, C. & Wellman, B. (Eds.) (2001). The Internet in Everyday Life. Special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist, 45(3), whole issue. Wellman, B. & Haythornthwaite, C. (Eds.) (2002). The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford, UK: Blackwells Publishers.
-- __--__-- Message: 3 From: "mito akiyoshi" <sgz01570@nifty.ne.jp> To: <air-l@aoir.org> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 17:51:44 -0600 Organization: The University of Chicago Subject: [Air-l] weak ties, great good place, & cyberspace Reply-To: air-l@aoir.org
Hi everyone,
Does somebody know of publications that apply the notions of weak ties (Granovetter) and/or third place (Oldenburg) to understand ephemeral yet meaningful ties created in and around cyberspace? I began using these concepts to make sense of forms of sociality observed in communities (both "virtual" and offline) I am studying. I read a few papers that make reference to these concepts, But I do not know anything really good. Other than suggestions for readings, I appreciate your thoughts on this matter as well.
Whoami> I am a doctoral student of sociology. I am working on a dissertation about uses of the Internet in Japan, I am particularly interested in the ways in which everyday people adopt and adapt to the Internet to maintain their personal communities.
Thank you in advance,
Mito Akiyoshi Department of Sociology The University of Chicago