Methods and Issues for Research in Virtual Communities

2009 ◽  
pp. 912-920
Author(s):  
Stefano Pace
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Social Research ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
Main Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Social Side ◽  
The Web

The Internet has developed from an informative medium to a social environment where people meet together, exchange messages and emotions, and establish friendships and social relationships. While the Internet was originally conceived as a commercial marketspace (Rayport & Sviokla, 1994), nowadays the social side of the Web is a central phenomenon to truly understand the Internet. Social gratification is among the most relevant motivations to go online (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Stafford & Stafford, 2001). People socialise through the Internet, adding a third motivation to their online activity, other that the pleasure of surfing in itself (the “flow experience” described by Hoffman & Novak, 1996) and the usefulness of finding information. Virtual communities are springing up both as spontaneous aggregation (like the Usenet newsgroups) or forums promoted and organised by Web sites. The topics of a community range from support for a disease to passion for a given product or brand (Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001). The intensity and relevance of the virtual sociality cannot be discarded. Companies can receive useful and actionable knowledge around their own offer studying the communities devoted to their brand. Hence social research should adopt refined tools to study the communities in order to achieve reliable results. The aim of this article is to illustrate the main research methods viable for virtual communities, examining their pros and cons.

Methods of Research in Virtual Communities

2011 ◽  
pp. 585-592
Author(s):  
Stefano Pace
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Flow Experience ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Side ◽  
The Web ◽  
Social Gratification

The Internet has developed from an informative medium to a social environment where people meet together, exchanging messages and emotions and establishing friendships and social relationships. While the Internet was originally conceived as a commercial marketspace (Rayport & Sviokla, 1994) with new opportunities for both firms and customers (Alba, Lynch, Weitz, Janiszevski, Lutz, Sawyer, & Wood, 1997), nowadays the social side of the Web is a central phenomenon to truly understand the Internet. Social gratification is among the most relevant motivations to go online (Stafford & Stafford, 2001). People socialise through the Internet, adding a third motivation to their online activity, other that the pleasure of surfing in itself (the “flow experience” described by Hoffman and Novak, 1996) and the usefulness of finding information.

scholarly journals Science and the Internet: be fruitful and multiply?

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
pp. C01
Author(s):  
Sveva Avveduto
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Scientific Thought ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Side ◽  
The Web

What role and citizenship has the scientific thought on the web, or rather on the social side of the web? Does it benefit from the debate between peers and with the general public, or else does it only risk to become a monologue? How to deal with the number of instruments the Internet is able to provide in making, discussing and disseminating research? These are some of the questions tackled by the reflections from scholars and experts which were the basis for our debate.

scholarly journals Segmenting The Web 2.0 Market: Behavioural And Usage Patterns Of Social Web Consumers

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlota Lorenzo-Romero ◽  
Efthymios Constantinides ◽  
Maria-del-Carmen Alarcon-del-Amo
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Current Phase ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Social Web ◽  
The Web

The evolution of the commercial Internet to the current phase, commonly called Web 2.0 (or Social Web) has firmly positioned the web not only as a commercial but also as a social communication platform: an online environment facilitating peer-to-peer interaction, socialization, co-operation and information exchange. Internet users are not any more passive consumers of information but are actively involved in online creation, editing, and dissemination of content. They form virtual communities and interact with each other making use of a variety of interactive applications like social-networking sites, online forums, blogs, and wikis. This new social environment entails new challenges and opportunities for marketers, practitioners and behavioural researchers encompassing an appealing and untapped research area. In this empirical study we develop a classification of Web 2.0 users.  Segments are identified on the basis of socio-demographic features, involvement, usage of the Internet, online purchase behaviour, personality characteristics, and the degree of use of Social Web sites. We analyze the differences between user segments, their trust levels and satisfaction and conclude that the degree of online experience is one of the most important antecedents of trust and satisfaction with Web 2.0 applications. The study identifies issues of further research and ways that can help field marketers to better map and understand their online markets in order to utilize effectively the Internet and particularly of the Web 2.0 domain as part of their marketing strategy.

scholarly journals Web technology and farmers

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 243-248
Author(s):  
Z. Havlíček
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Major Element ◽  
Web Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Web

Web technology is a major element of the Internet. The various and inexpensive possibilities to use this technology allow for the minimisation of differences between rural and urban areas. This article focuses on the use of www technology for creating web sites. It outlines theoretical starting points for planning web sites, as well as practical methods, which are utilised for setting up the web presentation of a farm.

Caught in the Web

2013 ◽  
pp. 1294-1314
Author(s):  
Keith A. Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Personal Health Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Privacy And Confidentiality ◽  
Medical Privacy ◽  
The Web

The social consequences of the internet are profound. Evidence of this can easily be found in the enormous body of literature discussing its impact on democracy, globalization, social networking, and education. The implications of the internet for medicine have likewise received a great deal of attention from policy makers, clinicians and technology theorists. Medical privacy, in particular, has garnered the lion’s share of attention. Nevertheless, research in this area has been lacking because it either fails to unpack the conceptual and ethical complexities of privacy or overestimates the power of technology and policy to protect our medical privacy. The aims of this chapter are twofold. The first is to provide a nuanced explication of the concept of privacy, and, second, to argue that e-medicine and the policies supposedly designed to protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal health information fail to do so and in some instances make their violations easier to commit.

Shopping Agent Web Sites

2011 ◽  
pp. 222-231
Author(s):  
Ming Wang
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Internet Marketing ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Price Information ◽  
Comparison Shopping ◽  
Online Shoppers ◽  
Software Programs ◽  
The Web

This chapter introduces the shopping agent technology as a new Internet marketing trend. The recent development of shopping agent Web sites has offered online shoppers an excellent comparative shopping environment. Shopping agent Web sites, also called shopping agents or shopping bots, are software programs that search the Internet stores on the Web and find products that meet a buyer’s specifications. Not only do these agent Web sites bring comparative product and price information from individual merchants’ Web sites, but also provide the online merchant ratings to customers. In summary, these agent Web sites take a query, search the Web sites of individual merchants that may have the product sought, bring back the results, and present them in a consolidated and compact format that allows comparison shopping at a glance.

Caught in the Web

2011 ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Keith A. Bauer
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Health Information ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Personal Health Information ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Privacy And Confidentiality ◽  
Medical Privacy ◽  
The Web

The social consequences of the internet are profound. Evidence of this can easily be found in the enormous body of literature discussing its impact on democracy, globalization, social networking, and education. The implications of the internet for medicine have likewise received a great deal of attention from policy makers, clinicians and technology theorists. Medical privacy, in particular, has garnered the lion’s share of attention. Nevertheless, research in this area has been lacking because it either fails to unpack the conceptual and ethical complexities of privacy or overestimates the power of technology and policy to protect our medical privacy. The aims of this chapter are twofold. The first is to provide a nuanced explication of the concept of privacy, and, second, to argue that e-medicine and the policies supposedly designed to protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal health information fail to do so and in some instances make their violations easier to commit.

Sharing Bites on Global Screens

2011 ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Hudson Moura
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Equal Access ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Professional Skills ◽  
Cultural Products ◽  
Social Content ◽  
The Web

Snack culture is the new phenomenon that shrinks media cultural products and can be easily shared on social networks of the Internet. Thus, it can be consumed in a reduced amount of time circulating instantly all over the globe. These tiny and snappy materials are changing people’s habits, transforming passive viewers into active users, and promoting equal access to all, and requiring no professional skills. Viewers now can also produce cultural and social content in widespread virtual communities (based on the Web 2.0) that are increasingly interactive. This chapter presents and analyses a variety of media snacks that form and circulate as snack culture; it also elucidates some of those current changes that are shaping today’s relationship between society and media.

Codes of Ethics in Virtual Communities

2008 ◽  
pp. 1434-1442
Author(s):  
Calin Gurau
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Online Discussion ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
Online Discussion Forums ◽  
The Difference ◽  
E Mail ◽  
The Web

The development of the World Wide Web has created new opportunities for interpersonal interaction. The Internet allows one-to-one (e-mail), one-to-many (Web sites, e-mail lists) or many-to-many (online discussion forums) interaction, which represent a unique feature in comparison with traditional communication channels (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996). On the other hand, the Internet has specific characteristics, such as: • Interactivity: The Internet offers multiple possibilities of interactive communication, acting not only as an interface, but also as a communication agent (allowing a direct interaction between individuals and software applications) • Transparency: The information published online can be accessed and viewed by any Internet user, unless this information is specifically protected • Memory: The Web is a channel not only for transmitting information, but also for storing information¾in other words, the information published on the Web remains in the memory of the network until it is erased. These characteristics permit the development of online or virtual communities¾groups of people with similar interests who communicate on the Web in a regular manner (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996; Goldsborough, 1999a, 1999b; Gordon, 2000). Many studies deal with the ethics of research in Cyberspace and Virtual Communities (Bakardjieva, Feenberg, & Goldie, 2004), but very few publications relate with the Codes of Ethics used in Public Discussion Forums (Belilos, 1998; Johnson, 1997). Other specialists have analyzed specific categories or uses of online discussion forums, such as online learning (Blignaut & Trollip, 2003; DeSanctis, Fayard, Roach, & Jiang, 2003) or the creation of professional communities of practice (Bickart & Schindler, 2001; Kling, McKim & King, 2003; Millen, Fontaine, & Muller, 2002), and in this context, have also discussed briefly the importance of netiquette and forum monitoring (Fauske & Wade, 2003, 2004). The difference between these online communities and public discussion forums is the degree of control exercised on the functioning and purpose of the forum by a specific individual or organization. This article attempts to investigate, analyze and present the main patterns of the codes/rules of ethics used in the public discussion forums, otherwise known as Newsgroups, and their influence on the profile and functioning of the community.

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