Dear Mito, here is some literature on the creation of ties in electronic groups that distinguishes between weak and strong ties. I include one of my own papers. Hampton, Keith N. 2001. Living the Wired Life in the Wired Suburb: Netville, Glocalization and Civil Society.University of Toronto, Department of Sociology. Matzat, Uwe. (accepted for publication). "Academic Communication and Internet Discussion Groups: Transfer of Information or Creation of Social Contacts?" Social Networks. (pre- print: http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/~matzat) Teigland, Robin and McLure Wasko, Molly 2000. Creative ties and ties that bind. Examining the impact of weak ties on individual performance. paper presented at ICIS 2000 (International Conference on Information Systems), Brisbane, Australia. Regards, Uwe Matzat On 12 Nov 02, at 12:01, air-l-request@aoir.org wrote:

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

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**************************************************************** Uwe Matzat Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut / Institute of Social Sciences Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Duesseldorf / University of Duesseldorf Universitaetsstr. 1 40225 Duesseldorf Germany email: matzat@uni-duesseldorf.de http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/~matzat ****************************************************************