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“This thesis will examine how social structure contributes to social influence over the Internet.”
Everything has been written once. I’m at base camp. Tomorrow, I start the climb to the peak. Hoping for an avalanche-free ascent, but I expect a few crevasses.
14,330 words:
My other PhD wordles here.
This post was originally published on socialsim
How do people develop reputations online? Is it quality of content? Is it how much they give away? Is it dogged determinism and dedication to their cause (in as public a medium as possible)? I’ve been looking at reputation in social virtual worlds like Second Life in the Methods chapter of my PhD. These are unique online environments for reputation development, as the reputation systems are based on the balance between the gift economy of online and the currency-based economies established by the world designers.
This post was originally published on socialsim
Last week I posted about a theoretical model I had developed based on three theories – the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Technology Acceptance Model and Diffusion Theory – to help explain the diffusion of voice through an online social network. The comments I received were hugely helpful; many thanks to the internet brain for your feedback!
This post was originally published on socialsim
I’ve finished Study 3, which means I’m done with the first draft of all my empirical chapters. Holy crap. So to celebrate, I’ve created an updated wordle of the four completed chapters (and 78,218 words):
This post was originally published on socialsim
I’m trying to converge two theories in my last empirical study – an exercise that follows the diffusion of voice through the Second Life social networks (interpersonal pathways of connected Friends) from August 2007-April 2008. I’ve got three theories I’m relying on here: the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985), the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989) and Diffusion Theory (Rogers, 1962).
This post was originally published on socialsim
OK, based on discussions I’ve been having offline with folks about the subject of a recent post, it’s experiment time. Below is a section from the introduction of Study 3 of my PhD, on the implications of Voice for the Second Life community. Please comment – I really welcome your feedback. But note – I’m not interested in raising the old debates that were well-discussed on the Official Linden Lab forums/blogs back in 2007. I’m interested in knowing whether you feel I have captured the concerns of the detractors and the support of the people who looked forward to the service adequately and completely.
This post was originally published on socialsim
Inspired by David’s PhD wordle, I have created my own work-in-progress:
62,512 words to date, including Studies 1-2, the results of Study 3 and the Social Influence literature review. That’s not even half of what it will be when it’s finished. I’m so sorry reviewers.
This post was first published on socialsim
I’m not sure how I feel about open publishing. I’ve been wrestling with this idea since a conversation several years ago with a friend who is very open about his content (to the extent that he feels comfortable releasing Creative Commons versions of his published works). He asked if I would release my PhD online once it was done. I might, I said. Maybe.
I’ve come to realise that I’m not totally comfortable with the idea. I haven’t published any of my findings, nor have I distributed any of my chapter drafts as they’ve been pulled, kicking and screaming, out of my fingertips. I’ve thought about it, and then the traditionalist in me worries that the content I have generated through 4 years of long, hard slog would be stolen – yes, stolen – and I wouldn’t be able to leverage it to my advantage.
This topic has unsurprisingly come under scientific scrutiny. I’m not the only one thinking about this, after all. Scientific American published (in print and in their Edit This series) an article called Science 2.0, in which they debated whether the (admittedly rare) practice of releasing raw experimental results ushered in a new era of science or opened researchers to potential exploitation. They lay out the arguments:
I desperately want the latter, but fear the former. And so I have yet to do anything.Of course, many scientists remain wary of such openness—especially in the hypercompetitive biomedical fields, where patents, promotion and tenure can hinge on being the first to publish a new discovery. For these practitioners, Science 2.0 seems dangerous: putting your serious work out on blogs and social networks feels like an open invitation to have your lab notebooks vandalized—or, worse, your best ideas stolen and published by a rival.
To advocates, however, an atmosphere of openness makes science more productive. “When you do your work online, out in the open,” Hooker says, “you quickly find that you’re not competing with other scientists anymore but cooperating with them.”
On average, when a given publication was made available online after being in print for a year, being published in an open source format increased the use of that article by about 8 percent. When articles are made available online in a commercial format a year after publication, however, usage increases by about 12 percent.“Across the scientific community,” [James A.] Evans [from University of Chicago] said in an interview, “it turns out that open access does have a positive impact on the attention that’s given to the journal articles, but it’s a small impact.”
This post was originally published on socialsim
…Or so one of the results of my latest analysis suggests. I asked 621 people for their beliefs about sexual activity in the virtual world – had they experienced it? did they think it was OK? would they do it with a virtual stranger? did they think there were any risks involved? – in an online survey available between April-December 2006, and it seems that attitudes towards sexuality can be predicted by real-life gender, avatar gender, age and country of residence.
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