7/1: Threads - Maintaining Communities Despite the Distance

This blog is all about using the social network analysis point of view to examine a community I’ve established with some of my oldest friends from home. It all started this summer when we found ourselves working at boring, cubicle-prone, 9-5 desk jobs. In order to entertain/distract ourselves from the daily grind, we began an asynchronous Facebook thread to which we would all report throughout our days. We kept our thread alive all summer, and I have found it to forge an even stronger community bond now that we are all at school in different places.

This particular theory examines what is exchanged, communicated and shared by the individuals in a given community. So, what is exchanged, communicated and shared in our mini-community? Stories, advice, questions, anecdotes, news, gossip and more. Some of us – being that 2 of 10 attend the University of Delaware, 2 attend Syracuse University, and 3 attend our very own Cornell – attend social events together as well. While it is a more a forum for long-distance discussion and support, our thread functions as a plan-making mechanism for friends who make real-life dates together as well.

Our social network is kept alive by both common ground and reciprocity. Our common ground is based upon the fact that we’ve all grown up in much the same way, and, as such, behave similarly and understand one another. Having all come from the same town, we share meanings, like certain commonly understood abbreviations or nicknames. In addition, we share a sort of historical identity in the sense that we share knowledge about our backgrounds, community members, and the norms with which we’ve grown up.

Reciprocity can be explained well by a quote from Haythornwaite, which described these community relationships as ones that “crisscross and reinforce one another” (p. 129). When one person writes to the thread with a problem, another will answer, and still others will share their input. We then might begin responding to other respondents and sharing our own stories at the same time. We all care for each other’s feelings and wellbeing, and our network of relationships serves to benefit all of the thread members. Thanks to the common ground and reciprocity of our thread, we experience social capital – or valuable gains obtained from these particular connections. Whether in the form of information, advice, or comic relief, our little community provides all of us with something unique and special.

The CMC nature of our thread does not seem to affect our relationships at all. Considering our synergies both online and offline, I have noticed no detrimental effects of transferring our communications from FtF to CMC. Our communication is highly warranted, as it seems to be immune from any outside manipulation. Thanks to Facebook’s rules and regulations, thread comments cannot be edited or removed by anyone but the writer herself. They cannot be hidden/disguised as being from anyone else, and all of our identities are protected by private passwords we’ve previously chosen. Similar to assessment signals, this mode of communication is tough to manipulate.


Bored, and wondering what an example of our thread might look like? If you’re in the mood for a laugh, here’s a peek into the typical weirdness that is my group of friends…

Sara Pullman
Today at 8:59pm
Reply
attention friends : george nomikos asked BOTH emily and i to his date party this thursday night. since we actually kind of had fun last time, we said yes. we are going to the SAE date party with george nomikos. together. he told us to look cute so he could pimp us out. i laughed really hard.

Alyssa Paer
Today at 9:00pm
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........ i hope he takes really cool pics with you guys with his fedora and adds really ghetto captions and does the one finger point to the camera. someone get him a pimp stick. what about the war that you didnt even know you got yourself into serah?