Saidu Ezike (Yellow)
For our assignment, we analyzed the content of the alt.support.chronic-pain Google Group. As the title suggests, this group was full of threads pertaining to symptoms, treatments, etc. of medically induced chronic pains. We analyzed a total of seven discussions and 20 threads (of course). Many of the discussions pertained to either complaining about their doctor’s pain treatment or expressing how badly they were feeling pain. One with an Indian doctor even referenced how he felt the Indian system of treatment was different than the American. The others were those asking for specific medical advice for the “physical maladies” they had. The following are our tabulated results:
As a whole, with the exception of a statistically insignificant 10 percent difference in emotional support, our results do not align with Braithwaite’s. We feel this difference has a great deal to do with the choice of support group we chose. The posts in our group were a little more medical specific than those chosen by Braithwaite. Also, the sample Braithwaite chose was much larger than ours and with a larger sample, our results would have aligned a little more. On top of that, we defined “disability” regarding our study as those who had pain/physical/medical disabilities. Braithwaite highlighted the behavioral, economic and social effects of
In addition, since the messages in the support groups were transmitted via e-mail rather than a thread in a group, our theory is that the responders had more time to think of and use diction that would really give the person what they wanted to hear as opposed to simply typing their advice along with their emotions away. Judging by the misspellings, the haphazardness of [some of] the threads and the feeling of a more conversational environment, we feel that threads are a little more rich medium than e-mail and therefore, more ambiguous and emotion detectable (Media Richness theory). Also, since this study was done about eight years ago, we feel that people express their emotions slightly different in CMC. For example, on AIM, we went from simple acronyms like LOL in ‘99 to LMMFAO in ’07 (Yes, someone actually has used that in an AIM conversation before believe it or not).
- In terms of information, our results were 48.7% higher than those of Braithwaite. This may be correlated to the fact that this Google Group was one where specific questions about physical maladies were posed and the most effective way to answer them was to give informational support.
- In terms of tangible assistance, our results were 17.5% higher than those of Braithwaite. Once again, this is likely correlated with the fact the questions asked for specific advice and steps and if one disregarded giving tangible assistance, they simply would not be answering the question. For example, people asked “what should I do” type questions and it would be of no help if someone simply showed emotional support and disregarded the tangible assistance.
- In terms of Esteem support, our results were 21.4% higher than those of Braithwaite. Referring the media richness point made in the third paragraph, since people are more likely to express their emotions in this ‘perceived-richer’ medium of google threads, we feel it is easier to detect esteem support since these answers are a little less “professional” than those that would be received in e-mails (especially eight years ago).
- In terms of Network Support, we had no instances and Braithwaite had 7.1% of his sample have network support. This difference is likely due to our choice of group. If we were in a “my computer has a disability!” group of if our group had messages that “appeared to broaden the recipient's social network, by connecting him or her to others with similar interests or situations, including access, presence, and companions” (p.135) then we would have had some instances of network support.
- Finally, in terms of Emotional support, our results were 10% higher than those of Braithwaite. This is likely due to the media richness point made in the third paragraph of this post as well as the Esteem support post. We do, however, feel the reason that this percentage difference is less than Esteem support is because, often times, one is inclined and even obliged to give someone emotional support when they are feeling disable, in pain or depressed. We feel that the person’s human nature factor outweighs the medium of communication.
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