Dear Mito, As part of my doctoral dissertation, I referred to Oldenburg's "third places" in characterizing virtual communities as online gathering places for social interaction. Additional related ideas that I found useful included Erving Goffman's analyses of behavior in public gatherings, Lynn Lofland's concept of "parochial realms" as places where strangers interact, and Georg Simmel's notions about urban strangers (I note gratefully that AoIR member Stine Gotved introduced me to the work of both Lofland and Simmel). For me, your phrase "ephemeral yet meaningful ties" evokes the idea of transient, temporary relationships among relative strangers, what Lofland calls "nonintimate relationships" (1998, p. 62), although perhaps this is not what you have in mind. And I also understand Frank Thomas's point about online messages being sent to people one knows offline (as opposed to strangers). My students this semester tell me their instant message relationships primarily involve one-on-one communication with people they already know offline; most of them claim not to participate in group conversations online, or to communicate online with relative strangers (or nonintimate acquaintances, if you will). This strikes me as more similar to telephone relationships and quite different from the patterns that seemed prevalent some years back (pre-IM) with synchronous online groups environments such as IRC and MUDs/MOOs. Frank mentions email, SMS messages, and regular mail, all typically forms of one-to-one communication among familiars; maybe there's more opportunity for "ephemeral" or transient, temporary ties among strangers/nonintimates in group communication environments. Good luck with your research, Janet Sternberg, Ph.D. Visiting Assistant Professor, New Media/Digital Media Department of Communication and Media Studies Fordham University REFERENCES Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in public places: Notes on the social organization of gatherings. New York: The Free Press. Gotved, S. (2000, September). Newsgroup interaction as urban life. Paper presented at the conference of the Association of Internet Researchers, Lawrence, KS. Retrieved September 11, 2000, from http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/aoir/papers/gotved-paper.pdf Lofland, L. H. (1973). A world of strangers: Order and action in urban public space. New York: Basic Books. Lofland, L. H. (1998). The public realm: Exploring the city's quintessential social territory. Hawthorne, NY: A. de Gruyter. Oldenburg, R. (1997). The great good place: Cafés, coffee shops, community centers, beauty parlors, general stores, bars, hangouts, and how they get you through the day. New York: Marlowe. (Original work published 1989) Simmel, G. (1949). The sociology of sociability. American Journal of Sociology, 55, 254-261. Simmel, G. (1950). The stranger. In K. H. Wolff (Ed.), The sociology of Georg Simmel (pp. 402-408). New York: Free Press. Sternberg, J. (2001). Misbehavior in cyber places: The regulation of online conduct in virtual communities on the Internet (Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 2001). Dissertation Abstracts International, 62(07), 2277 (UMI No. AAT 3022160, http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/3022160).
Frank Thomas wrote:
Mito, I shall sent you a paper and a presentation off list that I wrote with Zbigniew Smoreda from France Télécom R&D UCE usage lab on "Social Networks and Residential ICT adoption and use" based upon a representative European nine country study last year. However, we worked on ego-centered networks so we were not able to analyse weak ties. BTW, I don't know why you call online communications "ephemeral yet meaningful". In our residential sample the LARGE majority of email messages or SMS messages were sent to people you knew offline. These communications are nothing of "ephemeral". This is internet hype. Internet - as well as the mobile phone - added another layer of technology to the existing ones, and thus changed the opportunity structure of the users. nothing else.
In Berlin at the end of the 19th century, "you got mail" up to 6 times a day. There is an entire, living world before the Internet came unto Earth.
Frank
sgz01570@nifty.ne.jp 11/11/2002 6:51:44 PM >>>
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
-- ---------------------------- Frank Thomas FTR Internet Research 321, boulevard de la Boissière 93110 Rosny-sous-Bois France tél. 0033.1.48.94.36.90