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In this article, the authors synthesize 3 years of social technologies research, including studies of Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub, to present a theory driven framework to guide future social scientific research using “Big Data.” They connect levels of analysis derived from empirical study of influence to the electronic trace data generated by social technologies. Specifically, the authors outline a relationship between social media technology platforms, individual goals for participation, and emergent small groups to inform future research on influence in social technologies. They incorporate theory from small group literature, communities and networks of practice, and media theory to explicate a contextual framework for measuring influence. In their discussion, the authors build on the contrast between influence indicators in Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub to argue for a greater focus on the influence abstractions of articulation and affiliation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social media communication is characterized by reduced anonymity and off-to-online social interactions. These characteristics require scholars to revisit social influence mechanisms online. The current study builds on social influence literature to explore social network and gender effects on online behavior. Findings from a quasi-experiment suggest that both network-related variables and gender are significantly associated with online behavior. Perceived social environment, measured by personal network exposure rate, is more significant than objective reality, measured by frequency of received social messages, in determining behavior. We discuss the implications of social contagion effects on web-based strategic communication—including advertising, political campaigns, and social mobilization. Data limitations and the difficulty of measuring social network influence via social media are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines Twitter use by presidential candidates during the 2012 primary election. The Twitter feeds and activity levels of candidates from the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Americans Elect parties and their campaigns were gathered over a 3-month span. Variables examined include the number of tweets posted, followers gained, and followers added as well as the occurrence of hashtags, user mentions, hyperlinks, and content categories within tweets. Results showed candidates’ presence on Twitter was not uniform. Tweet frequency did not necessarily result in followers gained. Interestingly, the candidates who tweeted the most were not major party nominees. As the Republican primary campaign progressed, the amount of daily tweeting by the candidates was not higher than it had been earlier in the primary season. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Wikipedia’s coverage of breaking news and current events dominates editor contributions and reader attention in any given month. Collaborators on breaking news articles rapidly synthesize content to produce timely information in spite of steep coordination demands. Wikipedia’s coverage of breaking news events thus presents a case to test theories about how open collaborations coordinate complex, time-sensitive, and knowledge-intensive work in the absence of central authority, stable membership, clear roles, or reliable information. Using the revision history from Wikipedia articles about over 3,000 breaking news events, we investigate the structure of interactions between editors and articles. Because breaking article collaborations unfold more rapidly and involve more editors than most Wikipedia articles, they potentially regenerate prior forms of organizing. We analyze whether the structures of breaking and nonbreaking article networks are (a) similarly structured over time, (b) exhibit features of organizational regeneration, and (c) have similar collaboration dynamics over time. Breaking and nonbreaking article exhibit similarities in their structural characteristics over the long run, and there is less evidence of organizational regeneration on breaking articles than nonbreaking articles. However, breaking articles emerge into well-connected collaborations more rapidly than nonbreaking articles, suggesting early contributors play a crucial role in supporting these high-tempo collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article we argue that there is a trade-off between generativity and originality in online communities that support open collaboration. We build on foundational theoretical work in peer production to formulate and test a series of hypotheses suggesting that the generativity of creative works is associated with moderate complexity, prominent authors, and cumulativeness. We also formulate and test three hypotheses that these qualities are associated with decreased originality in resulting derivatives. Our analysis uses a rich data set from the Scratch Online Community—a large website where young people openly share and remix animations and video games. We discuss the implications of this trade-off for the design of peer production systems that support amateur creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Former residents of the evacuated Gush Katif region, once parts of closely knit and cohesive communities, have been spread across Israel in temporary settlements since the disengagement, in 2005. The goal of this study was to learn how the evacuees interacted with one another online to organize politically and retain their social capital. The study focused on Katif.net, the major Internet site in use by the former residents of Gush Katif. This is an unusual case of a virtual community that continues to thrive online even as its offline predecessor has been evacuated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today location-based data, such as GPS coordinates, are increasingly being incorporated into Internet sites such as Flickr, Jaiku, and Placeopedia. In turn, new practices are emerging that evoke innovative ways of relating among people and between individuals and places. This article investigates this geographic turn in networked interaction—particularly, emergent sensemaking regarding the role of location in distributed communities. The author uses an inductive, grounded theory methodology based on ethnographic interview and artifact data to compare the microblogging practices of two communities: those using Twitter and those using Jaiku. Findings suggest that the organizing practices of the two groups are quite different, despite the similarities in the tools they use to interact. Although each platform allows for the development of peripheral awareness and ambient intimacy within user groups, the design affordances of Twitter as a straightforward broadcasting tool result in social patterns that are quite distinct from those of Jaiku, whose design enables threaded conversation. As a result, the communal bonds among Jaiku users appear to be built on thematic, conversational interaction that relies little on shared geographical references. Twitter users, with less robust means of threaded response, tend to broadcast individual reports from various geographical outposts. Communal bonds are thus formed on the basis of recognizing the highly indexical references, which in turn reinforce a common geographical locus for the community. The article concludes with a discussion of how design, though not determinate of interaction directly, is influential in shaping social patterns that emphasize different types of communal bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]