09wkict17.pptxCommunities and Organisations
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Objectives
At the end of this lecture you should be able to
distinguish networks from communities
identify different types of communities
explain the significance of governance structures for the formation and sustainability of communities
This week we examine the use of ICTs at the level of organisations with a particular focus on ‘virtual communities’ which combine some of the issues from the previous discussion but move the focus of attention on how communities are formed and maintained
We have moved from discussing the individual user to issues surrounding
applications – knowledge exchange and social media.
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From computing to communication and interaction networks
With the Internet computer networks have moved from resource sharing to communication and interaction
MIT’s map of the Internet, showing communication functions as structure
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Social networks
An important idea in sociology since the 1950s
Used to describe relationships that cut across categories such as roles, groups, classes, organisations
In essence, a social network is a structure of nodes (individuals, groups, organisations) linked by ties taking the form of some specific type of exchange or interaction e.g.
Communication
Transport
Disease transmission
Political influence
Trade
Belonging to a network is about relationship ties rather than identity; members typically enter and leave more easily than with traditional social groups (like families or neighbourhoods)
Like computer networks, social networks can take different structures
A network of underground spy cells might look very different from a trade network
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The strength of weak ties
One application of the idea of these linking ties that define a network is ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties:
‘Weak ties provide people with access to information and resources beyond those available in their own social circle; but strong ties have greater motivation to be of assistance and are typically more easily available.’
(Granovetter, 1983, ‘The Strength of Weak Ties: Revisited’, pp 209)
Electronic media have enabled weak ties in particular to proliferate through informal social networks and those facilitated by social networking services – Facebook, LinkedIn and many others.
These have reduced the cost and changed the range, speed and number of interactions in which individuals can participate
Researchers such as Manuel Castells and Barry Wellman have identified this as a major shift in society
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The rise of the network organisation
Coordination between organisations has traditionally been based on either markets (horizontal contractual relations) or hierarchies (vertical authority relations)
From the late 1990s researchers have identified a new form: network organisations that bring together diverse resources, knowledge to cooperate on a single project or some sustained exchange of knowledge for mutual benefit
Usually based on ICT-enabled information links, collaborative tools and environments
May be geographically dispersed ‘virtual organisation’
Usually inter-organisational – e.g. in outsourcing
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Boeing 767 : Designed faster by involving the various parties at earlier design stages through sophisticated CAD systems – a network rather than linear design process that enabled some prototyping stages to be skipped
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Cisco – a network organisation?
Cisco’s global networked business model – core foundations
The relationships a company maintains with its core constituencies is as much a competitive differentiator as its core products or services
The manner in which a company shares information and systems is a critical element in the strength of its relationships
Being connected is not enough: business relationships and supporting communications must be networked…the global networked business model opens the corporate information infrastructure to all key constituencies,
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Customer is offered products and options
Customer specifies order
3. Order enters supplier network
4. Suppliers ship order to customer
Cisco Employee Connection – global Intranet connecting all employees
Open Forum – technical and peer support for customers
1985 email support
1989 software downloads
1990 online bug reporting d/b
1996 Internetworking Product Center
Cisco’s innovative communication networks
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From network to community
These terms are often used more or less interchangeably in ICT context but it is important to be aware of different emphasis
Original meaning of community was a group that
Shared a physical location
Was bound together by kinship and cultural identity
Comprised of individuals with multiple and ongoing mutual interests and dependencies
Now used for groups with more particular mutual interests and drawn from business, university, professionals and practitioners and others (e.g. amateurs and independent scholars) into online communities where
They share a communication (rather than a physical) environment
Ties become stronger, deeper, longer-lasting than in a network
Affiliation is often based on identity and interest (often formed from shared experience) rather than function
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When is a network a community?
The Internet provides numerous methods for interpersonal communication
e-mail, forums, upload sites (MySpace and the ‘ Cloud-based data lockers’), usenet and other ‘groups’, MMORPG (massively multiple online role playing games such was World of Warcraft), virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life), etc.
as well as sites specifically referring to themselves as ‘virtual communities’
Instances of persistent interpersonal communication can be found for each of these methods…
In some cases the pattern of communication replicates offline social connections
e.g. my e-mail traffic largely reflects people with whom I have some professional or personal connection
In other cases, new relationships might be established through interaction
e.g. Sometimes people I do not know send me e-mails
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Is it about persistent (regular, ongoing) communication?
If an interpersonal communication network stimulates persistent
communication between individuals is it a ‘virtual community’?
Argument For:
It is difficult to judge the value or commitment that individuals have to any community
Does being born in a place naturally make you a part of a community located there?
When individuals persistently communicate with one another they are sharing and have the potential for forming deeper ties
Argument Against:
Communities involve common values and inter-dependence that is more than regularly interacting
There are ‘strong’ ties and ‘weak’ ties between people and it is difficult for many people to imagine that any form of CMC (computer mediated communication) is sufficiently rich to (alone) create ‘strong ties’ (marriages resulting from online interaction alone are a curiosity)
It is difficult to resolve this debate…
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Let us consider an example –
The Amazon.co.uk Reviewer
Two years ago, Peter Durward Harris (who sadly has died) was Amazon’s 13th ‘top reviewer’ as determined by 30,800 people saying his reviews were helpful of 32,745 people commenting on his 4,187 reviews and he was the top reviewer in the Hall of Fame
Other reviewers reviewed more items and the current ranking is based on the ratio of helpful reviews – thus Harris has reviewed many more items and accrued less ‘helpful’ reviews as a share of his total reviews than the others.
Harris has a Blogspot page (http://peterdurwardharris16.blogspot.co.uk/) which relates his experience as a computer programmer who has suffered from long term unemployment and has taken on the hobby of reviewing in order to meet and interact with people.
Note that Mr. Harris’ dramatically changed his ‘accessibility’ since I first used him as an example of a virtual community member – at that time he did not provide any details about himself, something that a number of other top reviewers also do not do. Also Amazon has made it increasingly difficult to find out about the people behind the reviews.
Does the group of Amazon reviewers qualify as a ‘virtual community’?
For: People could begin to communicate with the reviewers and some might enable those who communicate to interact with one another
Against: This is too tenuous a basis for believing that a ‘community is formed. Perhaps there is somewhere else such a community that was stimulated by interaction with these reviewers, but it is not at Amazon.co.uk
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Mr. Harris Example (continued)
Does the group of Amazon reviewers qualify as a ‘virtual community’?
For: People could begin to communicate with the reviewers and some might enable those who communicate to interact with one another
Against: This is too tenuous a basis for believing that a ‘community is formed. Perhaps there is somewhere else such a community that was stimulated by interaction with these reviewers, but it is not at Amazon.co.uk
In particular, despite Mr. Harris’ prominent profile and contribution, he spent almost most of the last 20 years unemployed and his blog is an extended discussion of the problems of long term unemployment and account of his efforts to find work.
Mr. Harris’ social networking position would seem to favour finding a job, but he died unemployed. This may suggest a more critical assessment of the value of online resources than many people would make.
‘Welcome to a gathering that's like none other — remarkably uninhibited, intelligent and iconoclastic.
The articulate regulars in this place include noted authors, programmers, journalists, activists and other creative people who swap info, test convictions and banter with one another in wide-ranging conversations.
The WELL, originally the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, provides a literate watering hole for some unusual and unpretentious thinkers.’
Here is another example…
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Real People Hang Out Here
‘Who said what?
When you are logged in to The WELL you can easily find the real names of others who post here. Each post is linked to the true name of the poster.
On the outside, for guest-readable conferences, the link is not available, and posters may obscure their identities except to those who are reading while logged-in.’
http://www.well.com/truenames.html last Accessed 10 Feb 2013
Further promotional information from the well…
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Networking sites publish all your data to everyone
Barry Wellman argues that in real life people carefully control information flows, and make distinctions even among friends and family
Do social networking sites build communities? Or some types of community?
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Communities of sociality
Mutual support, building social networks, finding partners (for work, play, learning, etc.)
Communities with collective purpose
Collective action to create value either in terms of money or satisfaction
Communities of interest
Sharing viewpoint to reinforce, contest, or deepen belief or political action
Different types of communities
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Types of communities
Sociality
Purpose
Interest
Political
Action
Groups
Open Source Software
Book Discussions
City and Patient Groups
Forums
*
*Parenting
Persistent Chats
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Communities have to regulate themselves – how does this happen online?
Sponsorship – Whoever takes care of the infrastructure may be able to set the rules
Some sponsorship is by collective rule
Some collective rule may be formalised
All virtual communities face two challenges requiring authority
Organisational authority – defining who can be a member and what to do about members who abuse others
Procedural authority – defining the identity or purpose of the community
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Illustration – Wikipedia
Editorial control strategies
Seigenthaler wrote an op-ed article describing the particulars of the incident, which appeared in USA Today, of which he had been the founding editorial director. The article was published on November 29, 2005. In the article, he included a verbatim reposting of the false statements and called Wikipedia a "flawed and irresponsible research tool".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy
The John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy arose when contributor Brian Chase anonymously posted a hoax in the Wikipedia entry for John Seigenthaler, Sr., a well known writer and journalist. The post was not discovered and corrected until more than four months later. This incident received publicity and led to critical examination into the credibility of the information that Wikipedia offers and to policy changes within the Wikimedia Foundation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy
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The neutral point of view
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being the truth, and all significant published points of view are to be presented, not just the most popular one. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.
As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. It is a point of view that is neutral – that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NPOV
Wikipedia has a formal structure of governance exercising procedural authority in which one of the central tenets is…
Wikipedia exercises organisational authority in inviting all to contribute but revoking access to those who abuse or vandalise the site or others involved in creating Wikipedia or blocking certain actions of users
The enforcement of this authority involves considerable effort
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Challenges and opportunities in online communities
In addition to the problems of establishing and maintaining organisational and procedural authority, virtual communities have to deal with a variety of other issues including
intellectual property – who owns contributions made to the community?
succession – who ‘inherits’ the community if sponsor leaves
‘forking’ – if content is collectively owned, can a sub-group defect to a new community with existing content?
These limitation can be offset by the value that participants find in being part of the community:
For example in December of 2012 35,178 individuals made 5 or more contributions to the English language Wikipedia http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediansEditsGt5.htm
Many individuals, including Rheingold, have testified to the positive role that virtual communities have had in their lives
The free/libre open source software (FLOSS) movement has produced leading software, e.g. Apache and Linux as well as thousands of other useful or entertaining ‘products’
Virtual communities can be the basis for businesses and e-commerce
Virtual communities provide a way for those concerned with social, political, environmental, and other issues to join with others to make change
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Networks and Communities in Business Life
Most medium and large companies have developed ‘intranets’ with a considerable variety of information and functionality
Such sites have stronger rules and norms because participants are company employees
There is no assurance of ‘freedom of expression’ in the workplace
Nonetheless, many of the same issues apply to building corporate networks and communities
In the categorisation offered earlier, intranet sites are mostly ‘purpose’ driven although
they do provide information related to sociality like notice of coffee meetings or pub nights
also common to provide ‘professional interest’ support in ways the complement other independent networks
There has been rather little research on the features of intranet Web sites over this decade
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Summary
This lecture has focussed on the social communication issues surrounding
ICT use in organisations and to form networks and communities
Of course there are many other uses of ICTs in organisations that are specifically related to collaborative processes, the processing of information related to customers or clients, computer aided design and engineering and all other forms of documentation of work processes and outcomes
This lecture has focussed on the basics of social interaction as these issues are often central in designing functionality into online communication and collaboration facilities
-- Many companies (as well as government) waste resources on developing facilities that no one uses
-- Such facilities often generate controversy or resistance because the institutions (rules, norms and standards) aren’t spelled out
-- Considering the role of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ ties is a central issue in the design of such facilities
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Web References
Karen Evans, “The Significance of Virtual Communities,” http://www.whb.co.uk/socialissues/vol2ke.htm
Evans is a sociologist at University of Birmingham and this article summarises key themes in this lecture from a very similar point of view
David Coon, Site on Virtual Communities http://www.davidcoon.com/virtual_.htm
Coon is someone who completed a Masters degree with a study of a specific virtual community. His dissertation is available here as well as a number of other resources for the study of virtual communities.
Howard Rheingold, Virtual Worlds Resources http://www.rheingold.com
Rheingold is one of the pioneers of writing about virtual communities. His book on virtual communities is on the reading list for this class. Here he provides a collection of resources and a link to his current site including classes that he teaches at Stanford and Berkeley on virtual communities.
All links current as of 13 April 2016
