Week 3 Blog Post
What concept or idea intrigued you most in this weeks' readings (to
discuss in Session 3)? How/does it relate to your thinking about the
questions and issues raised in last week's readings (e.g., Session 2 -
technological determinism vs. social constructionism)?
I was quite fascinated in reading "The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation". Firstly, I was struck by the great amount of work that the authors Jennifer Preece and Ben Shneiderman did in researching their paper--the references numbered five pages! Clearly they did their homework in coming up with this framework.
Yet, in their Discussion portion, they say that much research needs to be done to test their theory, or framework. This underscores to me how new social media is, and how the research being done on social media is also young and needs to mature.
I was also quite struck at how much user experience terminology and concepts/practices were mentioned in the article (perhaps I shouldn't be, since the journal is called "Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, and HCI is what many user experience designers majored in, and one of the many names that I believe user experience used to be called). As someone new to research papers, I am surprised at how research can be applied to "soft" sciences such as human behaviors and motivations.
I'm particularly interested in reading about future research into what are the motivating factors that lead people from reader to contributor to collaborator to leader. I believe that the common thread in going from one stage to the next is amount of activity and participation; off the top of my head, I think that some factors include: interest/enjoyment/pleasure, career/job/income, talent, skill, reputation. Table 4 also references social factors including moral/ethical values, societal respect, and power, celebration, and recognition. It's interesting that being a leader is not a one-way thing; the leader contributes in myriad ways to the community, and the community as well contributes in numerous ways to the leader.
Overall. the paper was an elucidating look into social media through the lens of this Reader-to-Leader framework. For example, I was shocked to read that "fewer than 10 percent of participants contribute 90 percent of the comments" on Slashdot.org, a social news website (for "nerds"). Recognizing this general principle--that a minority contributes the majority--is critical to crafting business and social strategy for social media websites and apps.
I was also influenced to think about my own participation in social media, and what roles of the framework I played in my technology-mediated social participation. I use Facebook, occasionally Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat (due to Chinese acquaintances), WhatsApp (because I was in Singapore), Kakao (with Korean friends), rarely Twitter and Snapchat, YouTube, and texting. I am mostly a reader, contributing only to YouTube, where I posted a series of SAT/ACT tutorials and dance videos, Facebook, and rarely Amazon and YouTube comments. I don't consider myself a collaborator or leader in any space, which I find kind of sad. I would hope to become a collaborator and leader in YouTube, as well as in the educational game design community.
I was quite fascinated in reading "The Reader-to-Leader Framework: Motivating Technology-Mediated Social Participation". Firstly, I was struck by the great amount of work that the authors Jennifer Preece and Ben Shneiderman did in researching their paper--the references numbered five pages! Clearly they did their homework in coming up with this framework.
Yet, in their Discussion portion, they say that much research needs to be done to test their theory, or framework. This underscores to me how new social media is, and how the research being done on social media is also young and needs to mature.
I was also quite struck at how much user experience terminology and concepts/practices were mentioned in the article (perhaps I shouldn't be, since the journal is called "Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, and HCI is what many user experience designers majored in, and one of the many names that I believe user experience used to be called). As someone new to research papers, I am surprised at how research can be applied to "soft" sciences such as human behaviors and motivations.
I'm particularly interested in reading about future research into what are the motivating factors that lead people from reader to contributor to collaborator to leader. I believe that the common thread in going from one stage to the next is amount of activity and participation; off the top of my head, I think that some factors include: interest/enjoyment/pleasure, career/job/income, talent, skill, reputation. Table 4 also references social factors including moral/ethical values, societal respect, and power, celebration, and recognition. It's interesting that being a leader is not a one-way thing; the leader contributes in myriad ways to the community, and the community as well contributes in numerous ways to the leader.
Overall. the paper was an elucidating look into social media through the lens of this Reader-to-Leader framework. For example, I was shocked to read that "fewer than 10 percent of participants contribute 90 percent of the comments" on Slashdot.org, a social news website (for "nerds"). Recognizing this general principle--that a minority contributes the majority--is critical to crafting business and social strategy for social media websites and apps.
I was also influenced to think about my own participation in social media, and what roles of the framework I played in my technology-mediated social participation. I use Facebook, occasionally Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat (due to Chinese acquaintances), WhatsApp (because I was in Singapore), Kakao (with Korean friends), rarely Twitter and Snapchat, YouTube, and texting. I am mostly a reader, contributing only to YouTube, where I posted a series of SAT/ACT tutorials and dance videos, Facebook, and rarely Amazon and YouTube comments. I don't consider myself a collaborator or leader in any space, which I find kind of sad. I would hope to become a collaborator and leader in YouTube, as well as in the educational game design community.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the field of social media research is very new. Although the article isn't from that long ago, I feel that in many ways the media they studied has grown and changed. The statistics of how many users are actual contributors, and the statistics from boyd and Crawford's (2012) article regarding the actual sample size of data that is available to researchers was revealing. It highlights the limitations of using big data and social media for research due to a small sample size, and the fact that the "subjects" are tech-savvy and digitally engaged.
I'm curious, how using big data for research can be a disadvantage for people who choose to stay off of social media, and how their perspective may be inadvertently left out of the conversation.
Hi June, I agree. It's funny to read research articles that reference long-gone social media sites like Friendster and Myspace! The cycles of growth, maturity, and decay are speeding up, and perhaps researchers need to develop more agile practices.
DeleteI was at an NYC Media Lab event the other day, and one speaker said that they really hated the term "big data". I think she mentioned that it is bandied about too much and doesn't really mean much; I think sometimes the term is used when it isn't necessary. That is, it should be used only for extremely large data sets, but is often used for data sets that are not really that big :). Perhaps there should be small, medium, and large data too!
You mentioned that you were interested about what motivated the transition from reader to leader. And it reminded me of crowdsourced Art. As a form of participatory art, over 50% of contributors do it for fun. Maybe I think the main force for people to get more involved in the Internet is pleasure. Also, you cited that "fewer than 10 percent of participants contribute 90 percent of the comments". Well, maybe the Internet is basically the pyramid structure (?) For minority, they have a high voice and use social media to make profit. And for most people, maybe we are just receptive.
ReplyDeleteWish you success in the educational game design community!!
Best,
Mengshi (Veronica)
Hi Mengshi,
DeleteI googled crowdsourced Art, and it is a fascinating concept! I think it's neat because each individual doesn't have to do *that* much work, and yet the final product is an immense work of art as a whole.
I think the internet is different because crowdsourced art usually limits the contributions that one person can do per project, but with the internet, there are no limitations. Thus, someone who is a really avid YouTube producer can make many videos in a certain amount of time, versus someone who is content to simply watch videos and occasionally like or comment.
Or perhaps some look at the internet as a business, and others look at it as fun/pleasure--or maybe as all of them: business and fun and pleasure! I guess it is highly personal and different for each one of us. This vein of thought takes me back to Laszlow's Hierarchy of Needs :). Possibly one person's hierarchy has them evolving towards becoming a leader, while another's hierarchy takes them away from becoming a collaborator/leader on the internet and towards becoming a collaborator/leader off the internet.
Thanks for the comment!
Daniel
Hi, Daniel, I'm Allen (Shuai Yuan)! Excited to read your blog! I have the same strong interests in this passage, not only because I tend to have deeper understanding of HCI (I always think of our major either Instructional Technology and Media or Game Design have some points overlapping with the field of HCI because the focused process of interaction with technology, while our program more focus on learners as objects and given instructions.) through reading this paper, but also my interests in making YouTube video or transmitting videos on other social media platforms. In fact, a leader doesn't always have to be a leader, and he doesn't have to be a leader in many field. He is a leader in this particular community while being a reader and a listener in many other places. I guess you feel pleasant being a contributor to the YouTube on topics of SAT and dance when you find lots of positive feedback among the feedbacks. The satisfaction is so appealing and encouraging for a leader to devote himself to the social media continually. This passage listed the reasons making a social media more alive and coherent, which gives me a clear understanding of the mechanism operating those online communities.
ReplyDeleteSometimes even as a reader I could feel my contribution to the community, because it's my thumbs up and positive comments which become part of the motivations for leaders to make things better, I think both you and me should be proud of that.
Since you don't allow the anonymous comments in settings which I found could be used with my wordpress account while the given wordpress option doesn't seem to work, I've posted my blog address below: https://shuaiyuantc.wordpress.com
Thanks!