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.
> --
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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