Greetings: I've been a lurker for too long, and I happen to have a handy starting point for Barry Wellman's question about who helps whom: Pew did a study of "social ties" and internet use where the break down the people, medium, and type of support (e.g., help when someone is sick, help finding a job, help fixing the house) people get. Like your 1990 paper, it's using the Granovetter weak ties framework. it's a good place to see some simple trends as related to internet use: (although it doesn't have as conceptually relevant categories as your paper - this study only uses rather specific activities) http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2006/The-Strength-of-Internet-Ties/01-Sum...
In 1990, Scot Wortley and I published "Different Strokes from Different Folks" in the AmJSoc. Nice paper, showing that different peeps gave different types of help. For example, parents gave financial aid; friends gave sociability.
I'm wondering if anyone has done similar research in the Internet age, that would also build media in. For ex, emotional support is easier to give online than material aid. And perhaps it is time online that is the key, rather than role type (in 1990, all we had was phone vs F2f).
If you have done such research, or know of some, I Urgently need some leads. Already published stuff would be great, because it's more cite-able, but if you have some working papers, like to hear about that too.
Telling me today would be wonderful.
Happy Pesach to All, Barry Wellman _______________________________________________________________________
S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________