Re: [Air-L] Definition of on-line community through homophily

8 Oct 2010

      Quite agree - that an online site is a community is a hypothesis to be tested.  
/Caroline

---- Original message ----
...
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:30:06 +0400
From: Semenov Alexander <semenoffalex@googlemail.com>  
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Definition of on-line community through homophily  
To: Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn@illinois.edu>
Cc: air-l@listserv.aoir.org
Hello, Caroline!
  I didn't mean entire LiveJournal, only one of its
  communities. My case is community "sociolog" and the
  problem is that during 2 huge scandals in russian
  sociology, which mostly took part in blogosphere (in
  Russia blogosphere = LiveJournal) this community
  wasn't the main place of discussion.
  So, my arguement is that community should be defined
  by interaction, not by some declarative features
  like interests, profiles, communities, etc.
  Best regards,
  Alexander.
  2010/10/6 Caroline Haythornthwaite
  <haythorn@illinois.edu>
I have published a social network informed
    theoretical position on what
    forms 'crowds' vs 'communities'. The basic
    proposition is that crowds are tied
    by a coorientation to a subject of common
    interest, communities are tied by
    this coorientation, but also heavily by attention
    to others in the community.
    Be interested in what you find from your work.
    This is one version of the
    idea:
Haythornthwaite, C. (Jan. 2009). Crowds and
    communities: Light and
    heavyweight models of peer production. Proceedings
    of the 42nd Hawaii
    International Conference on System Sciences. Los
    Alamitos, CA: IEEE
    Computer Society. Available via the UIUC
    institutional repository at:
    https://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/handle/2142/9457.
I'm surprised you'd think Live Journal is not a
    community in that sense. Try a
    dissertation by Claudia Rebaza that shows the
    internal recognition of others
    and interaction through reading and commentary on
    writings. (Re one
    community within LiveJournal).
Rebaza, C. (2009). The Technological Continuum of
    Coterie Publication: Fan
    Fiction Writing Communities on LiveJournal.
    Unpublished doctoral
    dissertation, University of Illinois.
/Caroline
---- Original message ----
    >Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2010 12:46:52 +0400
    >From: Semenov Alexander
    <semenoffalex@googlemail.com>
    >Subject: [Air-L] Definition of on-line community
    through homophily
    >To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org
    >
    >Hello, everybody.
    >I'm looking for papers, that define on-line
    communities through common
    >itnerests.
    >My idea is to prove, that many so-called
    communities in LiveJournals are
    not
    >such, because there is too few discussions and
    other kind of interaction. So
    >that joining such a community is mostly a
    demonstration of taste and part
    of
    >self-presentation in their profiles.
    >In order to prove that I want to run a PCA on the
    data from one of such
    >communities like in Paolilo, Wright and Mercure's
    article (
    >http://www.scribd.com/doc/353326/The-Social-Semantics-of-
    LiveJournal-FOAF-Structure-and-Change-from-2004-to-2005).
    >Their data show that there is no correlation
    between interests and friends
    >and I understand it as lack of homophily. (Am I
    right?) So, that is my
    >working hypothesis I want to prove. That's why I
    need some sources.
    >I looked through Barry Wellman's works but he
    uses another approach.
    >--
    >Alexander Semenov.
    >MA student
    >Faculty of Sociology
    >Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences
    (MSSES)
    >http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html
    >
    >Graduate Student in Sociology at
    >State University - Higher School of Economics
    >http://www.hse.ru/eng
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    --------------------------------------
    Caroline Haythornthwaite
I will be using this @illinois email for a few
    more months for projects started at UIUC.
However, if your email is in relation to my
    position as Director, SLAIS, UBC please use
    haythorn@interchange.ubc.ca
--
  Alexander Semenov.
  MA student
  Faculty of Sociology
  Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences
  (MSSES)
  http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html
Graduate Student in Sociology at
  State University - Higher School of Economics
  http://www.hse.ru/eng

Caroline Haythornthwaite

I will be using this @illinois email for a few more months for projects started at UIUC. 

However, if your email is in relation to my position as Director, SLAIS, UBC please use haythorn@interchange.ubc.ca