Session 3 Readings

The Ridings et al. article gave the best overview of the motivation behind content contribution. The article investigated some of the reasons as to why people join virtual communities. Their findings showed that many sought friendship or an exchange of information. I was not surprised that a much lower percent of people sought social support. People who seek social support share intimate details about their lives, and not many want to share these details publicly over the Internet. The Ridings et al. study found that the most popular reason for joining a community across all community types is for the exchange of information. The second most popular reason for joining a community depended on its type. Health/wellness and professional/occupational topics had social support as the second most popular reason, while personal interest/hobbies/pets/recreation topics had friendship as the second most popular reason. The second most popular reason for joining a community varying with community topics was expected because people join different groups for different reasons in real life. For instance, people join professional associations to network with others in their field, and people join support groups for emotional encouragement. Based on their findings, the Ridings et al. article suggests that virtual community managers support information exchange and encourage friendship and social support. This article mentioned one example of encouraging friendship and social support where a patron could “see who responded to each post.” According to the article, identification of the individual who created a post could be important in creating “connections among members,” leading to friendships.

The Ling et al. article describes four experiments conducted to test designs based on social science theories that describe the motivations behind contributions. The first experiment is based on the collective-effort model where “people will work hard when they think their effort will help them achieve outcomes they value.” Experiment 1 tested the ideas that people will contribute more if they feel that their contributions are unique and if they feel that they are similar to others in the group. The results indicated that members contributed more when they felt that their contributions were unique and when they were least similar to others in the group. Individuals in heterogeneous groups were found to have “lively disagreements.” Experiment 2 tested the idea that members contribute more if the benefit they receive from and the benefit they provide to the community are made salient. Reminding people either of the benefit provided and the benefit given separately decreased the number of contributions. However, reminding people of both benefits given and received increased participation. Overall, it was found that reminding participants of the opportunity to contribute increased participation. Experiment 3 also found that there was a decline in participation when individuals were reminded of either benefit alone, and that mentioning both the benefits given and received was “better than mentioning either one alone.” Experiment 4 tested both the benefits and limits of the goal setting theory where assigning “challenging, specific goals” motivates individuals to “achieve more.” The results of experiment 4 found that there was an increased participation when members were given specific rather than non-specific goals. It was also found that there was an increase in participation with group rather than individual goals due to social facilitation.

Tedjamulia et al. proposes a model suggesting ways to increase contribution in online communities. The three groups of the model’s components are environmental factors, personal characteristics, and goal setting/goal commitment. The components of interest as related to the session 3 assignment are:
Proposition 3: OC members who have high trust in its participants will contribute and participate more frequently.
Proposition 5: As interesting content increases, more individuals will want to participate and contribute. (fresh content)
Proposition 7: The more visible a person’s actions are to other community members, the more he or she will contribute and participate.
The following ideas from the Tedjamuila et al. article are also of interest as related to the session 3 assignment.
1 - Under the Goals section that members “choose to engage in the activity tat gives them the most beneficial expected outcome.”
2 – Reinforcers of increasing contribution are meaningful content from credible sources and performance appraisal of contributions.

The one item of interest as it relates to the session 3 assignment from the Schrock article is that “females were more likely to be MySpace members.” Also, that many MySpace members are extroverted and self-disclosure friendly.

The Twitter article has an interesting section on user intentions. The most common use of Twitter was found to be discussions on what people did daily and what they were currently doing. Many users also gave reports on the latest news and gave comments on current events. Twitter was used as a means of exchanging information and contacting friends and family.