Social Network Analysis--Firehouse.com

On the Left we can see hwoods, and on the Right ScareCrow57

For the individual project, I decided to build upon the data collected from the group project. In the first analysis there was some interesting things found. I wanted to see if there would be any correlations between two different threads (1st thread and 2nd thread). I was hoping to find information that shows something about leadership roles and user relationship in the social network analysis. The website used was Firehouse.com. Data was collected the same way for the second thread. The second thread that I picked was “Is online fire school that bad?” I picked this thread because it had same amount of posts as the 1st posts. Information that was collected was:
• There were 58 posts totals
• Average posts collected from the website for each member
• Length of membership in months
• Each post was looked at and classified as negative, supportive or indifferent

After all the data was collected about the members, it was entered in NodeXL and a graph was obtained of the interaction of members. The following things were found about the threads:

1st thread:
• Longest membership: SPFDRum—125 months
• Highest average posts per day: ScareCrow57—8.34
• 16 negative (28% of total posts), 12 supportive(21% of total posts)
• ScareCrow57– 7 posts, 5 messages directed at him, 5 negative (31% of negative messages), said something to all

2nd thread:
• Longest membership: CaptainGonzo—106 months, 2 negative
• Highest average posts per day: ScareCrow—8.37
• 13 negative (22% of total posts, 12 supportive (21% of total posts)
• hwoods– 10 posts, 7 messages directed at him, 2 negative (16% of negative messages), said something to all

Since ScareCrow57 and hwoods seemed to get the most attention I tried to figure out why. I went back to the threads and tried to look at the content that was posted by these two members. The content posted by them showed an opinion. Members either posted negative comments or indifferent comments back to the two members.

I tried to find more information about the two members, so I sent them a message asking them about their rank and how long they been on a fire department. Their response is as follows:
• ScareCrow57: About 15 years and I'm just a fire fighter. Never had the desire to be a LT., Capt., or Chief. Biggest reason is with my professional life I don't have the time to dedicate to the function. I could very easily be an officer, I chose not to be. I do write our grants and have been very successful with them.
• hwoods: As of October 4th, starting my 52nd year. 30 years Career, all 52 Volunteer. Still Riding and having a ball........... Rank - I've pretty much been everything along the way, and an officer of some kind for 48 years, with about 30 of those years as a Chief Officer, Currently a Commissioner.

I found this interesting about both members. I believe that because of their long experience as firefighter, and the knowledge they have gathered over the years, they definitely show some leadership roles, or at least try to exhibit leadership roles. To further look at this and understand if members are showing leadership, there has to be a survey that measures their leadership skills. I will try to determine the type of measure in my thesis proposal.

The Study

The focus of this project is on issues of gender, identity, norms, and communication in an online virtual environment (Halo 3). At this point it is rather clear that video games have become a popular pastime for millions of people across the country. Past research on video games has primarily been focused around the violent content of video games and the link between this violent content and aggressive behavior. Another research area has been issues of gender in video games. In particular, women are typically portrayed in stereotypical roles and are overly sexualized. It is between these lines of research that we see some interesting interactions taking place that this study focuses on.

Theoretical Foundation

Several theories can help to explain the interactions occurring in virtual spaces, in particular negative interactions. For the purposes of this study, Social Identity Theory and the SIDE model are used to frame issues of gender voice in multiplayer games of Halo 3. Social Identity Theory (SIT) points out that, in general, people will classify each other into different social categories (e.g., gender, age, religious affiliation). From this classification, individuals will begin to identify with a particular group(s) that they are a member of. They may then judge others based on group affiliation and the categories the other has been placed in. In addition, “individuals tend to choose activities congruent with salient aspects of their identities, and they support the institutions embodying those identities”.

The SIDE model is an extension of SIT, essentially adding the concepts of deindividuation and anonymity into the model. This theoretic model posits that in online interactions one has a degree of anonymity and many social context cues are stripped out by the medium used. Whatever remaining cues exist take on particular importance. In addition, the lack of identifying information leads people to treat others not as individuals but as belonging to particular groups or categories.

In the context of the current study, namely gender in multiplayer gaming, SIT and SIDE model would predict that, in online contexts, individuals will categorized themselves and others into categories or groups based on whatever social context cues are present. Given that past portrayals of women in video games have been of a stereotypical manner, women may not be seen as competent gamers and in turn treated in stereotypical fashion based on the context cue that identifies them as a female (typically voice communication).

More Information

If you are interested in this project, please feel free to visit the project website. That site contains more information, as well as audio and

video examples.

Lolcats, Ritual, and Social Identity

This is part of an ongoing ethnographic project with the icanhascheezburger (ICHC) community. I have been conducting a textual analysis as well as interviews with the website's members. I have been particularly interested in the following question: How does ritual reinforce social identity in an online community of lolcat fans?

According to Cohen (1985) and other proponents of symbolic interactionism, rituals are a symbolic affirmation of community boundaries that strengthens social identity with that community. Rituals provide the opportunity to reinforce community identity and belongingness. Rituals can also serve as symbolic markers that have a more explicit function, such as to mark occasions. This is apparent in the lolcat fan community, where members gather to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and invented holidays. Participation in these online rituals within the structure of the site reinforces identification with the community and draws a symbolic boundary between the cheezfriends and others. The rituals associated with the lolcat community seem to divide into three broad categories: The rituals of the site, the rituals of language, and the rituals of events planned by the community.

• Rituals of the site: these deal with the everyday acts of the members, including viewing, commenting, and posting. Within these daily acts are unique rituals, such as the "nawt-sekund" ritual, where the first person to post is offered a dance, a drink, and sometimes a snack to be shared by all community members. This reinforces their "play nice" rules by transforming a competitive desire to be first into a community celebration.
  
  
• Language as Ritual: lolspeak is a unique dialect of English that is primarily text-based. While lolspeak began with the unusual grammar of the lolcat captions, it has evolved and grown as all languages do. While English speakers can understand lolspeak if they read it phonetically (and community members are not required to use it), the language provides a symbolic boundary of the community that reinforces social identity by encouraging adherence to linguistic norms.
  
  
• Ritual of Events: The community began with birthday parties for their members, but it has expanded into slumber parties, garden parties, virtual zoo openings, and collaborative storytelling events (among others). These rituals are symbolic markers of temporality, and participation in these rituals helps to maintain cohesion and create new memories shared among the members. Formal rituals such as these serve an explicit function by allowing for all members to participate in an understood experience of community. According to social identity theory, this helps to solidify group norms and increase internalization of these norms.

As my work and play continue with the cheezfriends, I hope to explore other questions about social support, norm creation, socialization, and deviance. What I have discovered, and hope that others will as well, is that what seems silly or frivolous on the surface has actually yielded deep relationships and a sense of mutal respect and play that is difficult to find in a web-based community.

Social media.

A venn diagram that illustrates social networking sites...creepily accurate?

Yr Dad's on Facebook

Here’s an NPR story about widespread online social networking use by older generations and the reaction from their younger internet using counterparts. It highlights how the young are now fleeing Facebook because usage is seen as characteristic of older generations and isn’t “cool” anymore:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2009/08/facebook_overrun_by_older_folk.html

Here’s an article about older adults using online social networking tools as professional, job search tools – an unprecedented trend for socially oriented sites like Facebook.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/your-money/15JOBS.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=online%20social%20networking&st=cse

When reading (or listening) to these articles, two issues come to mind: diffusion and the establishment of social roles. Specifically, how do process of diffusion facilitate the spread in popularity of this trend from one generation to the next. Secondly, how does role maintenance affect the usage and perception of these tools?

Theories of social contagion indicate that people are more likely to adopt an innovation if they see that others important to them have adopted it as well. But from whom do they adopt this trend? Are they emulating their peers and trying to be closer to family members? Are they recognizing the benefits of usage in promoting colleagues’ careers? Bakshy et al. (2009) points out that in regards to this process, there is a necessary threshold of people needed to motivate people to shift their perspective and go through with the adoption. What, in this case, is the threshold necessary to prompt older individuals to initiate a personal paradigm shift?

A described by Hogg et al. (2009), people have a tendency toward “dissonance-reduction” and try to align their actions with the role they have internally developed for themselves. This suggests that older generations have re-identified themselves as “tech-savvy” individuals, recognize that others with similar characteristics have done the same, and recognize this role as salient and important- possibly because they feel attached to individuals who share the same function such as their children or grandchildren (Hogg et al. 2009). Our parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and more clearly think of themselves as Internet users and have adjusted their behavior accordingly (Burke and Reitz 1981).

I’d like to know, in order to garner a better picture of how this role shift has spread and how it’s perceived by older and younger generations, I’d like to know: do you have older friends and relatives how use online social networking tools (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc)? How to they perceive their use of these tools? For example, my Dad, who prides himself on his professional credentials, uses Facebook for networking in relation to job leads. Additionally, how did they find about these tools? Was it through your urging? Have they seen their friends use them? Did the media persuade them that online social networking use is now acceptable for older adults? Do you think older users constitute a separate category of Internet users within themselves?

That cord is made up of group solidarity, commitment, identity and role development, effective framing, the reduction of social ambiguity, lowering of social transaction costs, the establishment of trust and more. We're studying that cord!

Plus, it's a cute cartoon. Enjoy :)

"Social Media Revolution."

In case you haven't had a chance to see this yet, here's a great video about the importance of social media.