- From Statistical Panic to Moral Panic: The Metadiscursive Construction and Popular Exaggeration of New Media Language in the Print Media
Crispin Thurlow
Media (mis)representations typically exaggerate the difference between computer-mediated discourse (CMD) and non-mediated discourse, misconstrue the 'evolutionary' trajectory of language change, and belie the cultural embeddedness of CMD.
- Rzeczpospolita blogów [Republic of Blog]: Examining the Motivations of Polish Bloggers through Content Analysis
Kaye D. Trammell, Alek Tarkowski, Justyna Hofmokl, & Amanda M. Sapp
This quantitative content analysis of Polish blogs aims at understanding the content elements and user-initiated features of blogs under the theoretical framework of uses and gratifications. Polish bloggers appear to be driven more by self-expression than by social interaction motivations.
- Predicting Continued Participation in Newsgroups
Elizabeth Joyce & Robert E. Kraut
This study tests whether the responses that newcomers to an online community receive to their first posts influence the extent to which they continue to participate. Newcomers who received a reply were more likely to post again, independent of the quality of the reply they received.
- Fostering Civic Engagement by Building a Virtual City
Marina Umaschi Bers & Clement Chau
The design and results from a pilot study are presented of young people using a three-dimensional multi-user environment in a multicultural summer camp for youth. Children developed a virtual community that became a safe space for experimenting with civic conversations and testing democratic values.
- Portrayals of Information and Communication Technology on World Wide Web Sites for Girls
Chad Raphael, Christine Bachen, Kathleen-M. Lynn, Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, & Kristin A. McKee
This study reports a content analysis of 35 World Wide Web sites that included in their mission the goal of engaging girls with information and communication technology (ICT). It finds that sites emphasize cultural and economic uses of ICT, doing little to foster civic applications that could empower girls as citizens of the information age.
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- Trouble in a Geographically Distributed Virtual Network Organization: Organizing Tensions in Continental Direct Action Network
Michelle Shumate & Jon Pike
Listserv and conference call records from the Continental Direct Action Network were analyzed to examine how the virtualness of this organization impacted participants' perceptions of opportunity, balance of latency and mobilization, formation of a collective identity, and formation of affective bonds.
- The Contact Hypothesis Reconsidered: Interacting via the Internet
Yair Amichai-Hamburger & Katelyn Y. A. McKenna
This article critiques the Contact Hypothesis, one of the leading theories advocated for reducing intergroup conflict, and suggests that the Internet's unique qualities may help in the creation of positive contact between rival groups.
- Do Internet Users Have More Social Ties? A Call for Differentiated Analyses of Internet Use
Shanyang Zhao
Based on data from the 2000 General Social Survey, this study finds that different types of Internet usage are differentially related to social connectivity. While nonsocial users of the Internet do not differ significantly from nonusers in network size, social users of the Internet have more social ties than nonusers do.
- Traditional and Online Support Networks in the Cross-cultural Adaptation of Chinese International Students in the United States
Jiali Ye
This study investigates the relationships between sociocultural and psychological aspects of cross-cultural adaptation of Chinese international students in the United States, and the support that they perceive they receive from traditional support networks and online ethnic social groups.
Research Brief
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The Effect of Communication Medium on Research Participation
Thomas Chesney
This brief examines the effect of the communication medium on response rate to requests to participate in research, by comparing an oral request with an email request. Results show that an impersonal email to a mailing list is the worst way researchers can approach students to request participation.
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