scholarly journals Talking to me? Creating networks from online community logs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
RW Helms ◽  
W Ai ◽  
Jocelyn Cranefield

Online communities offer many potential sources of value to individuals and organisations. However, the effectiveness of online communities in delivering benefits such as knowledge sharing depends on the network of social relations within a community. Research in this area aims to understand and optimize such networks. Researchers in this area employ diverse network creation methods, with little focus on the selection process, the fit of the selected method, or its relative accuracy. In this study we evaluate and compare the performance of four network creation methods. First we review the literature to identify four network creation methods (algorithms) and their underlying assumptions. Using several data sets from an online community we test and compare the accuracy of each method against a baseline ('actual') network determined by content analysis. We use visual inspection, network correlation analysis and sensitivity analysis to highlight similarities and differences between the methods, and find some differences significant enough to impact study results. Based on our observations we argue for more careful selection of network creation methods. We propose two key guidelines for research into social networks that uses unstructured data from online communities. The study contributes to the rigour of methodological decisions underpinning research in this area.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
RW Helms ◽  
W Ai ◽  
Jocelyn Cranefield

Online communities offer many potential sources of value to individuals and organisations. However, the effectiveness of online communities in delivering benefits such as knowledge sharing depends on the network of social relations within a community. Research in this area aims to understand and optimize such networks. Researchers in this area employ diverse network creation methods, with little focus on the selection process, the fit of the selected method, or its relative accuracy. In this study we evaluate and compare the performance of four network creation methods. First we review the literature to identify four network creation methods (algorithms) and their underlying assumptions. Using several data sets from an online community we test and compare the accuracy of each method against a baseline ('actual') network determined by content analysis. We use visual inspection, network correlation analysis and sensitivity analysis to highlight similarities and differences between the methods, and find some differences significant enough to impact study results. Based on our observations we argue for more careful selection of network creation methods. We propose two key guidelines for research into social networks that uses unstructured data from online communities. The study contributes to the rigour of methodological decisions underpinning research in this area.


2015 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugene Ch'ng

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the formation, maintenance and disintegration of a fringe Twitter community in order to understand if offline community structure applies to online communities. Design/methodology/approach – The research adopted Big Data methodological approaches in tracking user-generated contents over a series of months and mapped online Twitter interactions as a multimodal, longitudinal “social information landscape”. Centrality measures were employed to gauge the importance of particular user nodes within the complete network and time-series analysis were used to track ego centralities in order to see if this particular online communities were maintained by specific egos. Findings – The case study shows that communities with distinct boundaries and memberships can form and exist within Twitter’s limited user content and sequential policies, which unlike other social media services, do not support formal groups, demonstrating the resilience of desperate online users when their ideology overcome social media limitations. Analysis in this paper using social networks approaches also reveals that communities are formed and maintained from the bottom-up. Research limitations/implications – The research data is based on a particular data set which occurred within a specific time and space. However, due to the rapid, polarising group behaviour, growth, disintegration and decline of the online community, the data set presents a “laboratory” case from which many other online community can be compared with. It is highly possible that the case can be generalised to a broader range of communities and from which online community theories can be proved/disproved. Practical implications – The paper showed that particular group of egos with high activities, if removed, could entirely break the cohesiveness of the community. Conversely, strengthening such egos will reinforce the community strength. The questions mooted within the paper and the methodology outlined can potentially be applied in a variety of social science research areas. The contribution to the understanding of a complex social and political arena, as outlined in the paper, is a key example of such an application within an increasingly strategic research area – and this will surely be applied and developed further by the computer science and security community. Originality/value – The majority of researches that cover these domains have not focused on communities that are multimodal and longitudinal. This is mainly due to the challenges associated with the collection and analysis of continuous data sets that have high volume and velocity. Such data sets are therefore unexploited with regards to cyber-community research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 8-37
Author(s):  
Ingrida Kruopštaitė ◽  
Maryja Šupa

The aim of this paper is to outline and critically analyse the ethical dilemmas faced by criminologists tasked with online community research. Online communities and online content serve as a valuable sources of criminological knowledge about online crime and deviance as well as formal and informal norm-making and means of social control. From discussion forum texts and blogs to multimedia posts in open and closed social networking groups, from visual and video materials on Instagram, Youtube, or Tiktok to organized crime group data exchanges in publicly inaccessible communication channels, there is great diversity and variety of the contents and forms of online communication enacted by online communities. Correspondingly, research projects are different – some focusing on the content as a linguistic object, others focusing on social relations, social network structure, and its ethnographic characteristics, while many fall in between. In addition, depending on the research goals and sensitivity of the research questions, researchers may opt for active interaction or passive (and sometimes covert) observation. Therefore there is no one-size-fits-all ethical solution for approaching online communities in criminology. Based on an in-depth analysis of methodological literature, the paper suggests that online community research is largely a matter of situational ethics, wherein researchers must make situation-aware ethical decisions about several key issues. In particular, they should aim to choose and provide arguments regarding: 1) expectations of publicity or privacy in publicly accessible information; 2) the need for informed consent or absence of such need; 3) ensuring balance between anonymity and authorship attribution; 4) securing collected data; and 5) correctly assessing risks to the researched individuals and communities, and the researchers themselves.


2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Kuei Huang ◽  
Wen I. Yang

Purpose – The aim of this paper was to investigate word-of-mouth communication behavior and other interactions between bloggers writing book testimonials and their community of readers in order to develop a method and strategy for enhancing word-of-mouth communication about books. Design/methodology/approach – This study conducted a netnographic investigation to explore word-of-mouth communication and interactions about new books between bloggers and their community of readers. Netnography is a qualitative approach for exploring the information exchange among online community members. Findings – It was found that personality traits, testimonials, and the responses of community readers to bloggers affected word-of-mouth related to books. Exposure to testimonials with commercial characteristics will not necessarily hinder the word-of-mouth about books. Practical implications – These results may provide a reference for publishers or related businesses that sell books or products via blogs during the planning of their marketing strategies. Originality/value – Businesses value the effects of online communities on marketing communication. This study provides insights into the communication between bloggers and their community of readers by demonstrating how word-of-mouth affects the promotion of books. This could facilitate the selection of relevant recommendations by management.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Ardhina Pratiwi Pratiwi

Selection of library materials is an important activity which aims to determine the selection of library materials based on characteristics and needs of users. Library selection activities are conducted by professional librarians who have the ability to develop collections. Due to the importance of library materials selection activities, the researcher conducted a study at the Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan 1 Pacitan Library. This study aimed to describe the principles of the librarian in the library material selection process at the library of Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan 1 Pacitan. The study used the descriptive qualitative method, with sampling using the purposive sampling technique to the librarian and non-librarian at the Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan 1 Pacitan Library. The data collection technique in this study used the semi-structured interview instruments. The researcher used the scope of library material selection principles consisting of the traditionalist, liberal and pluralistic view. According to the liberal view; the study results showed that librarians were not able to market the library through the approach to students. To the traditionalist view, the main principle in meeting the needs of students was based on the quality of library materials. While the pluralistic view suggested that most students were not satisfied with the literature available at the Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan 1 Pacitan Library. Based on that, the Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan 1 Pacitan Library has applied the traditionalist principles which can be seen from the quality of library materials that will be accessible to the students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (7) ◽  
pp. 688-706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri G. Rykov ◽  
Peter A. Meylakhs ◽  
Yadviga E. Sinyavskaya

With rapid growth of online social network sites, the issue of health-related online communities and its social and behavioral implications has become increasingly important for public health. Unfortunately, online communities often become vehicles for promotion of pernicious misinformation, in particular, that HIV virus is a myth (AIDS denialism). This study seeks to explore online users’ behavior and interactions within AIDS-denialist community to identify and estimate the number of those, who potentially are most susceptible to AIDS-denialist arguments—“the risk group” in terms of becoming AIDS denialists. Social network analysis was used for examining the most numerous AIDS-denialist community (over 15,000 members) in the most popular Russian SNS “ VK.com .” In addition, content analysis was used for collecting data on attitudes toward AIDS-denialist arguments and participants’ self-disclosed HIV status. Two data sets were collected to analyze friendship ties and communication interactions among community members. We have identified the core of online community—cohesive and dedicated AIDS denialists, and the risk group: users who communicate with core members, and, thus, can be more susceptible to the AIDS-denialist propaganda and their health behaviors (e.g., refusing treatment). Analysis allowed to significantly reduce the target audience for possible intervention campaigns and simultaneously increase the accuracy of determining the risk group composition.


Author(s):  
Soraya Masthura Hasan ◽  
T Iqbal Faridiansyah

Mosque architectural design is based on Islamic culture as an approach to objects and products from the Islamic community by looking at their suitability and values and basic principles of Islam that explore more creative and innovative ideas. The purpose of this system is to help the team and the community in seeing the best mosque in the top order so that the system can be used as a reference for the team and the community. The variables used in the selection of modern mosques include facilities and infrastructure, building structure, roof structure, mosque area, level of security and facilities. The system model used is a fuzzy promethee model that is used for the modern mosque selection process. Fuzzy inference assessment is used to determine the value of each variable so that the value remains at normal limits. Fuzzy values will then be included in promethee assessment aspects. The highest promethee ranking results will be made a priority for the best mosque ranking. This fuzzy inference system and promethee system can help the management team and the community in determining the selection of modern mosques in aceh in accordance with modern mosque architecture. Intelligent System Modeling System In Determining Modern Mosque Architecture in the City of Aceh, this building will be web based so that all elements of society can see the best mosque in Aceh by being assessed by all elements of modern mosque architecture.Keywords: Fuzzy inference system, Promethe, Option of  Masjid


1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Grijspeerdt ◽  
Peter Vanrolleghem ◽  
Willy Verstraete

A comparative study of several recently proposed one-dimensional sedimentation models has been made. This has been achieved by fitting these models to steady-state and dynamic concentration profiles obtained in a down-scaled secondary decanter. The models were evaluated with several a posteriori model selection criteria. Since the purpose of the modelling task is to do on-line simulations, the calculation time was used as one of the selection criteria. Finally, the practical identifiability of the models for the available data sets was also investigated. It could be concluded that the model of Takács et al. (1991) gave the most reliable results.


Author(s):  
Christian Luksch ◽  
Lukas Prost ◽  
Michael Wimmer

We present a real-time rendering technique for photometric polygonal lights. Our method uses a numerical integration technique based on a triangulation to calculate noise-free diffuse shading. We include a dynamic point in the triangulation that provides a continuous near-field illumination resembling the shape of the light emitter and its characteristics. We evaluate the accuracy of our approach with a diverse selection of photometric measurement data sets in a comprehensive benchmark framework. Furthermore, we provide an extension for specular reflection on surfaces with arbitrary roughness that facilitates the use of existing real-time shading techniques. Our technique is easy to integrate into real-time rendering systems and extends the range of possible applications with photometric area lights.


Author(s):  
Jyh-Jeng Wu ◽  
Yueh-Mei Chen ◽  
Paul C. Talley ◽  
Kuang-Ming Kuo

Effectively improving the medication adherence of patients is crucial. Past studies focused on treatment-related factors, but little attention has been paid to factors concerning human beliefs such as trust or self-efficacy. The purpose of this study is to explore the following aspects of patients with chronic diseases: (1) The relationship between emotional support, informational support, self-efficacy, and trust; (2) the relationship between self-efficacy, trust, and medication adherence; and, (3) whether chronic patients’ participation in different types of online communities brings about significant statistical differences in the relationships between the abovementioned variables. A questionnaire survey was conducted in this study, with 452 valid questionnaires collected from chronic patients previously participating in online community activities. Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling analysis showed that emotional support and informational support positively predict self-efficacy and trust, respectively, and consequently, self-efficacy and trust positively predict medication adherence. In addition, three relationships including the influence of emotional support on trust, the influence of trust on medication adherence, and the influence of self-efficacy on medication adherence, the types of online communities result in significant statistical differences. Based on the findings, this research suggests healthcare professionals can enhance patients’ self-efficacy in self-care by providing necessary health information via face-to-face or online communities, and assuring patients of demonstrable support. As such, patients’ levels of trust in healthcare professionals can be established, which in turn improves their medication adherence.


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