Development Of Online Communities Research Articles

Crossing the chasm: Understanding users’ motivational differences based on stages of online community

Drawing on chasm theory and perceived value theory, this study investigated user participation behavior differences at different stages of online communities to understand two stage-related threats: the cold-start problem (i.e., creating conditions for the establishment of an initial mass of content) and the chasm problem (i.e., user motivational change as an online community evolves). Analysis of survey data from 657 TikTok users revealed changes in user participation motivation that can be associated with the online community's development, providing evidence for the existence of a chasm in the online community context. This research has implications for both theorists and practitioners looking to build sustainable online communities.

The Role of Service Design and Co-design in the Lifecycle of Online Communities: Cases from the Chinese Service Design Community

COVID-19 and technological advances have made online communication more common, which has increased the number of online communities. However, online communities tend to rise and fall rapidly, and maintaining active participants is vital to online community survival and development. While online communities connect many diverse participants, they also add to the complexity of the network and challenge participants to collaborate and participate. Despite the widespread use of service design and co-design for collaborating and participating in offline communities, there have been few studies examining their application and contribution online. This study uses participatory action research as a methodology. It takes China's online community, Chinese Service Design Community (CSDC), as a research object, analyses its development process from 2019 to 2022, and combines the online community life cycle proposed by Iriberri and Leroy as an analytical model to illustrate how service design and co-design activities can contribute to the community's transition from "inception" to "maturity" (Iriberri & Leroy, 2009). In addition, it also explores how service design and co-design can help to produce the ‘legacy’ for the long-term development of online communities by reflecting on the influences of the 'heroes' of online communities.

Review Evaluation for Hotel Recommendation

With the prevalence of backpacking and the convenience of using the Internet, many travelers like sharing their experiences in online communities. The development of online communities has changed the decision-making process of consumer purchasing, especially for travel, i.e., some travelers reconsider their decisions because they believe that the reviews of online communities are more valuable than advertisements. However, these reviews are not completely reliable since most reviews are provided without specific author information and the review data are too large to be observed. In this paper, we propose a novel approach (named ET) to evaluate the trustworthiness of reviews in online travel communities. Our method considers three concepts, including the sentiment similarity of reviewers in the social network, features of the reviews, and behaviors of the reviewers. The experimental results demonstrate that our method is effective in evaluating the trustworthiness of reviews.

A Study of Douban Group Members' Behavior Based on Interactive Ritual Chains——The Peer Pressure Research Center as an example

The development of online communities provides a space for youth groups with similar interests to communicate and gain positive emotions from them. This paper uses Collins' interactive ritual chain as a theoretical perspective, and takes the "Peer Pressure Research Center" as a representative of Douban group to explore the formation and results of interactive rituals in the group by using participant observation. The study further considers how young people can express themselves and share emotions in online communities to alleviate negative emotions, obtain positive feelings, and reconstruct their self-perception.

Уязвимость к межличностному отвержению из-за внешности в бодипозитивных и проанорексичных онлайн-сообществах

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objective. </strong>We aimed to analyze vulnerabilities to interpersonal rejection based on appearance in female participants of body positive and pro-anorexic online communities.<br><strong>Background.</strong> The recent years has seen a rapid development of online communities focused on physical attractiveness. In the current paper two large segments of Russian-speaking online communities (body positive and pro-anorexic ones) are used to analyze the relationships between appearance-based rejection sensitivity, global self-esteem, personality traits, and body dissatisfaction.<br><strong>Study design.</strong> The participants were surveyed in June–August 2020, online, in Google Forms. Invitations were posted in body positive and pro-anorexic online communities. Data analysis included Student’s t test, and correlation, regression and mediation analysis.<br><strong>Participants.</strong> 562 adolescent girls and young women aged 15–30 (mean age – 21,06 ± 4,15; median – 21). <strong>Measures.</strong> The following measures were used: Appearance-based Rejection Sensitivity Scale (augmented by Social Comparisons based on Appearance survey), Body Image Questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Ten Item Personality Measure.<br><strong>Results. </strong>Female participants of pro-anorexic online-communities displayed increased body dissatisfaction, appearance-based rejection sensitivity and neuroticism. They were more prone to explicitly compare their appearance with others and experienced more negative emotions in relation to this. Body positive communities’ participants reported more conscientiousness and emotional stability, and they made more implicit comparisons aimed at getting information about their appearance from social/interpersonal context. Global self-esteem and social comparisons partially mediated the relationship between appearance-based rejection sensitivity and body dissatisfaction.<br><strong>Summary.</strong> Interpersonal sensitivity and self-esteem emerge as common risk factors of body dissatisfaction, whereas social comparisons (in terms of appearance) differentiate the participants of body positive and pro-anorexic communities.</p>

Online knowledge sharing in blockchains: towards increasing participation

PurposeThis paper aims to propose a system dynamics model of blockchain online community knowledge sharing, with the following goals: to reveal the internal mechanism of blockchain technology on community knowledge sharing; to show the impact of blockchain technology on knowledge sharing; and to promote knowledge sharing and the self-development of blockchain online communities.Design/methodology/approachBased on the core characteristic factors of blockchain technology, including incentive mechanism, trust mechanism, information protection mechanism, etc., a knowledge sharing analysis framework is established. Through the use of the Vensim PLE (Personal Learning Version) software, according to the steps of “putting forward a dynamic hypothesis”, “establishing a system dynamic equations”, and then “model testing” and “simulation”, the article analyzes in depth the process and extent of the impact of the above features on online community knowledge sharing.FindingsThe results show that the blockchain incentive mechanism, trust mechanism and information protection mechanism all contribute to promoting an increase in the number of community knowledge sharing users, as well as in the total amount of knowledge shared. The results also show that the token reward in the incentive mechanism has in fact a higher degree of influence than the trust and information protection mechanisms.Originality/valueAt present, no research on the internal mechanism of knowledge sharing in blockchain online communities has been carried out. This article plays a complementary role in research in this field, and offers significant guidance for promoting online community knowledge management and online community development.

Governing Generation Z in China: Bilibili, bidirectional mediation, and online community governance

The rise of large online communities in China has gone hand-in-hand with heavy regulation by the Chinese party-state. Caught between the party-state and demanding users, how do online platforms govern online communities to please both, and stay competitive against rivals? Drawing on public documents, interviews, and ethnographic observations, we study Bilibili, a leading online participatory platform for Generation Z. We argue that Bilibili has adopted a “bidirectional mediation” approach to actively mediate between users and the party-state. In this approach, the key to online governance is finding, or even cultivating, common grounds between users and the party-state and proactively facilitating communications between the two sides. We illustrate Bilibili’s bidirectional mediation through its Disciplinary Committee, an organization that enables users to participate in regulating online content on the Bilibili platform. The Bilibili case provides important insights into the evolution of online communities and state-society relations in China.

Remembering Netizens: an interview with Ronda Hauben, co-author of Netizens: on the history and impact of Usenet and the Internet (1997)

Netizens, Michael and Ronda Hauben’s foundational treatise on Usenet and the Internet, was first published in print 25 years ago. In this piece, we trace the history and impact of the book and of Usenet itself, contextualising them within the contemporary and modern-day scholarship on virtual communities, online culture, and Internet history. We discuss the Net as a tool of empowerment, and touch on the social, technical, and economic issues related to the maintenance of shared network infrastructures and to the preservation and commodification of Usenet archives. Our interview with Ronda Hauben offers a retrospective look at the development of online communities, their impact, and how they are studied. She recounts her own introduction to the online world, as well as the impetus and writing process for Netizens. She presents Michael Hauben’s conception of “netizens” as contributory citizens of the Net (rather than mere users of it) and the “electronic commons” they built up, and argues that this collaborative and collectivist model has been overwhelmed and endangered by the privatisation and commercialisation of the Internet and its communities.

Evolution of the Coordination of Activities Aimed at Building Knowledge in the Wikipedia Community

The first decade of the 21st century spawned the intense development of online communities of practice. The largest knowledge-sharing communities were formed in several dozen language versions of Wikipedia. Defining rules for cooperation was necessary to ensure the desired content quality created by Wikipedians. It was essential to develop the appropriate initiatives, tools, and space for effective activity coordination within the service. Previous research in this area pointed to the role of leadership, group size, and tools facilitating work automation in creating actionable strategies and in the self-organization of work.
 This paper aims to characterize the variability in creating new concepts of cooperation in selected language versions of Wikipedia and identify the factors of participating in various forms of cooperation. The author assumes that the greater number of initiatives a user enters contributes to an increase in their overall activity.
 The research conducted was both qualitative and quantitative. A netnographic approach was used, as well as a statistical analysis of user activity records. Thanks to the netnographic research, the stages of Wikipedia’s evolution were identified. Quantitative research has shown a correlation between the number of activity areas (a user’s affiliation to WikiProjects) and their overall activity (the number of edits made). A change in Wikipedians’ activity style was also observed depending on their seniority on the website. The study’s conclusions may be helpful for organizations using crowdsourcing to achieve their own goals.

Detection of fake news and hate speech for Ethiopian languages: a systematic review of the approaches

With the proliferation of social media platforms that provide anonymity, easy access, online community development, and online debate, detecting and tracking hate speech has become a major concern for society, individuals, policymakers, and researchers. Combating hate speech and fake news are the most pressing societal issues. It is difficult to expose false claims before they cause significant harm. Automatic fact or claim verification has recently piqued the interest of various research communities. Despite efforts to use automatic approaches for detection and monitoring, their results are still unsatisfactory, and that requires more research work in the area. Fake news and hate speech messages are any messages on social media platforms that spread negativity in society about sex, caste, religion, politics, race, disability, sexual orientation, and so on. Thus, the type of massage is extremely difficult to detect and combat. This work aims to analyze the optimal approaches for this kind of problem, as well as the relationship between the approaches, dataset type, size, and accuracy. Finally, based on the analysis results of the implemented approaches, deep learning (DL) approaches have been recommended for other Ethiopian languages to increase the performance of all evaluation metrics from different social media platforms. Additionally, as the review results indicate, the combination of DL and machine learning (ML) approaches with a balanced dataset can improve the detection and combating performance of the system.

Online community development in the early stages: the life cycle model application to Medical Sciences Stack Exchange

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the nature and evolution of online communities in the early stages of their life cycles. The authors analyze the topics of discussions in an online community to identify issues related to community development. The authors also compare the topics of exemplary questions that founding members believed to be asked with the real questions based on members' information needs.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use Medical Sciences Stack Exchange, a health Q&A community of Stack Exchange, which requires four stages of development: definition, commitment, private beta and public beta. The authors collect postings of discussions and health questions in the first three stages, perform a content analysis of the postings and analyze the topics of discussions and health questions.FindingsThe authors find that the topics of discussions evolved dynamically with the issues of community governance, role as a medical/health community, members and roles, content management, quality control and community design. The authors also find that the real questions included more specific and diverse issues than the exemplary questions that founding members expected.Originality/valueTheoretically, this study tests the community life cycle model in an online community that has explicit phase markers. The findings could shed light on community development and help prioritize issues to solve and decisions to make in its early stages. Additionally, this study focuses on the challenges and concerns in online health community building and solutions generated by collective efforts that could influence health communications in online communities.

Social Media as It Interfaces with Psychosocial Development and Mental Illness in Transitional-Age Youth.

Social media (SM) can be defined as "a group of Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content." This includes formation of online communities and sharing of information, ideas, opinions, messages, images, and videos. Therefore, although all online video games would not necessarily count as SM, video games that allow for substantial sharing of information and development of online communities do fit this definition. SM has become an integral component of how people worldwide connect with friends and family, share personal content, and obtain news and entertainment. Use of SM is particularly prevalent among transitional-age youth, usually defined as individuals aged 16 to 24 years, who are at critical junctures around developmental tasks such as identity development and establishment of social norms.

The role of members’ lived experience in the evolution of online communities toward online communities of practice

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how the lived experience of online communities’ participants makes these communities evolve into online communities of practice (CoPs).Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research design was used among backpackers. Data on backpackers’ lived experience and interactions were collected.FindingsThe results suggest a process of how online communities can become genuine online CoPs, thanks to participants’ lived experience. Their activities (information search, perceived benefits and electronic word-of-mouth) result in knowledge sharing and creation. The findings also emphasize the roles of expertise and offline interactions as process moderators.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focuses on one specific practice to conduct the research (i.e. backpacking), which limits the generalizability of the results.Practical implicationsThis study offers several implications for companies and stakeholders. First, it describes how the lived experience transforms online communities into CoPs and helps stakeholders obtain knowledge for customers to innovate. Second, it analyzes the processes of participation, interaction and promotion to share and create knowledge for customers to increase stakeholders’ competitiveness. Third, this study integrates members’ offline interactions by highlighting their potential effects on tacit knowledge loss in online CoPs.Originality/valueThe literature posits that online communities may evolve into online CoPs through a three-stage hierarchical path, but the underlying mechanisms and members’ contributions to the process have been largely neglected in the literature.

Space Planning for Online Community

Several years of consulting with online community hosts and managers have highlighted a variety of issues that recur across many online community development efforts. We summarize those issues in eight points that have functioned as useful guidelines to working with online communities, particularly within a corporate context. These recommendations focus on the location and purpose of the community, the monitoring of social activity within the space, the provision of feedback to participants and the organization and maintenance of the space. While this collection is particularly focused on issues relevant to community organizers closely involved in starting, maintaining or growing online communities, its principles are generally applicable for analyzing and understanding the dynamics within a variety of communities.

Exploring the Effect of Social Support and Empathy on User Engagement in Online Mental Health Communities.

It is known that social support and empathy are beneficial for mental health. As a result of the widespread development of social media, online social support and empathy could also influence user behaviors during the development of online communities. However, few studies have examined these effects from the perspective of online mental health communities. These communities appear to be a crucial source for mental health related support, but the spread of online empathy in these communities is not well-understood. This study focused on 22 mental health related subreddits, and matched and compared users (1) who received social support with those who did not receive social support, and users (2) who received more empathic social support with those who received less empathic social support. The results showed that social support and empathy are “contagious”. That is, users who received social support at their first post would be more likely to post again and provide support for others; in addition, users who received more empathic support would subsequently express a higher level of empathy to others in the future. Our findings indicate the potential chain reaction of social support and empathy in online mental health communities. Our study also provides insights into how online mental health communities might better assist people to deliver social support that can help others to deal with mental problems.

Blocked by YouTube? Unseen digital intermediaries for social imaginaries in the Asia Pacific

YouTube is one of the most utilised online content sharing sites, enabling commercial enterprise, education opportunities, and facilities for vernacular creativity. Its user engagement demonstrates online community development; alongside its use as a distribution platform to monetise one’s branded self. However, as a subset of Alphabet Incorporated, its access is often restricted by governments of Asian Pacific countries. This research describes how countries that have banned YouTube still have exceptionally strong online communities, bringing into question the sorts of augmentations used by its participants. This article focuses on digital intermediation strategies, specifically the DIY approach of community building through the use of unseen infrastructures. This comparative study of YouTube channels in several Asia Pacific countries highlights the techniques that bypass limiting infrastructures to boost online community activity. The results demonstrate digital intermediation provides unique opportunities for key agents to contribute to strengthening social imaginaries within the Asia Pacific region.

TYPOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES IN THE STUDY OF THE INTEGRATIVE DYNAMICS OF DEVELOPMENT OF GROUPS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS "VKONTAKTE" AND FACEBOOK

The attention of researchers is increasingly turning to the factors and mechanisms of human integration in the global Internet space. In order to increase the relevance of research methods for integrative processes in networked online communities, an important principle is the rejection of the classical conceptual framework and paradigms. The main research task at this stage is the collection and structuring of empirical material with the subsequent development of a theoretical model of the investigated object and the formation of a complex system of indicators for assessing integrative dynamics based on the typology of the selected key features. The article proposes criteria for a typological description of networked Internet communities, obtained as a result of a sociological study of the factors of online group dynamics. The applicability of the described criteria for creating a typology of online communities is substantiated. The theoretical substantiation of the phenomenon of hybrid forms of development of online communities as a specific type of social community is given. Conclusions are made about the influence of the described typological features of networked online communities on the processes of group integrative dynamics in the global Internet.

Online community development through social interaction — K-Pop stan twitter as a community of practice

ABSTRACT Fandom practices are often considered meaningless and unnecessary. However, the use of social media carries the potential for positive as well as negative impact on the users. Using the fraemwork of Community of Practice, the latest theory addressing community formation and interaction, as its theoretical framework, the study explores the Twitter-based online fandom community (called stan twitter) of Korean Pop-Music (K-Pop) as a working Community of Practice (CoP). This community is a hub of non-native English language speakers, who actively communicate on this platform. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews and participant observations to collect data, and analyzes it using qualitative coding. The study finds that the members of K-Pop Stan Twitter form interpersonal bonds, communicate regularly, and create a close-knit community where everyone contributes in their own capacity. The study suggests that the platform in question does possess the characteristics to be considered a working CoP, with the addition of another element that makes it unique: power hierarchy among the participants of the community, which is usually the least noticed aspect in research on online platforms. Moreover, it carries implications for inculcation of various positive qualities in the users.

Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on social loafing in online travel communities

Previous research has confirmed that social loafing as a pronouncing obstacle undermines the development of online communities. However, relevant studies centered on the critical factors that affect social loafing in online travel communities are still not well understood. Drawing on self-determination theory and social identity theory, this paper critically focuses on the effects of intrinsic motivation (enjoyment in helping and hedonic motivation), extrinsic motivation (reputation and reciprocity) and community identification on social loafing in online travel communities, using data collected from 300 respondents in China. After a structural equation modeling analysis, the results of this study indicate that only enjoyment in helping exhibits a significantly negative relationship with social loafing, whereas the other three types of motivation are reinforced by community identification to inhibit social loafing indirectly. Meanwhile, community identification is more positively influenced by extrinsic motivation (reputation and reciprocity), and social loafing can be effectively diminished by community identification. Theoretical and practical suggestions are discussed for future research.

Co Evolution of Information Society and Online Community: Concepts and Communication Practices

The impact of the Internet on the life of society is growing on a global scale, while it remains an uncontrolled area of interaction for various online communities, which requires further investigation. The purpose of the article is to conceptualize the notion of “co evolution of information society and online community” based on the theories of information society and analysis of communication practices. The objectives are to establish the factors of successful development and assess the prospects of this type of co evolution. The research uses both theoretical and practical approaches. A dialectical method was the main method of philosophical reflection. Community informatics is another scientific approach (M. Gurstein, D. Loader). To explain the phenomenon of integrity of technology and social networks in complex socio-technical systems, the actor-network theory (ANT) of Bruno Latour was used. This article gives a definition of co evolution as joint commensurate development of non-identical information processes and online communities. In the course of co evolution, “junction points” and “bifurcation points” were revealed and its social effects and prospects were assessed. The factors in successful development of the process of the information society and the online community co evolution were assessed: knowledge, technology, and information management. The conclusion about a common pace of the information society and the online community development not having been set was substantiated. The growing influence of online communities on society and a simultaneous trend towards secrecy and transformation into a new kind of social groups is a megatrend in the information society development. The results obtained are of practical importance in studying the problems of information management in the global network and regulating the activities of online communities.