BLUE: Sherrie Chavez
For this assignment, our group analyzed a number of support groups through Google. We used discussion boards about alcoholism, eating disorders, cheating, and sexual incompetence, to code the main types of support behavior from the Braithwaite study: information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support. The messages we read ranged in style from empathetic to angry, from personal to formal, from validating to discouraging. Many threads we found were just irrelevant, unconstructive, inflammatory messages, so we had to be careful to find substantial, positive comments that we could code.
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.8083333 |
| ||
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| frequency | % of msgs |
| Information |
| 17 | 0.85 | |
| Tangible assistance | 2 | 0.1 | ||
| Esteem support |
| 10 | 0.5 | |
| Network support |
| 3 | 0.15 | |
| Emotional support | 11 | 0.55 | ||
| Humor |
|
| 3 | 0.15 |
Our inter-rater reliability was high at 80.83% meaning. We believe this is because the topics we coded on were fairly straightforward and easy to understand. Furthermore, Walther and Boyd's theory of social support says that social support online is uniplex and has no nonverbal cues. Therefore, they are simpler and easier to understand.
The percentage of the messages we coded with information was 85%, which was significantly higher than the 31.3% in the Braithwaite study. In our study, the initial poster on the discussion board was asking for direct advice to cope with their problem so most responses included some sort of advice or suggestions (information) to the person. "Message coded as information support appeared to reduce uncertainty or help make life more predictable for the message recipient" (Braithwaite). In general, the people who frequented the message boards we analyzed are people who wanted to share their knowledge from past incidences and difficulties with people who were experiencing them now such as previous bouts of alcoholism or eating disorders, or experiences with cheating partners.
Our results for tangible assistance and network support were low in comparison to the other types of support, similar to the results of the Braithwaite study. Part of what contributes to this is the anonymity involved in CMC. When people are anonymous and don't have direct accountability to help anyone, they will provide less tangible assistance and be less inclined to give them actual contacts to get help. Also, being anonymous makes it harder to make direct connections with people and provide network support. If people don't know the person they are trying to help they have no reason to extend themselves to provide substantial assistance. Another factor of Walther's four dimensions of attraction to online social support is access. With such a variety of people and messages over time and space, it makes it very difficult to provide tangible assistance. Furthermore, the people who are on online message boards are not usually experts or therapists; they are just average people. Therefore, they don't have the knowledge or tools to provide someone with tangible assistance.
The results we had for emotional support were comparable to the results from the Braithwaite study, but the results for esteem were much higher. Both were between 50-55%. This is partially because the topics we analyzed were very conducive to positive feedback and encouragement. People who were cheated on were constantly told "you deserve better than that"; the people who were drinking were complimented on the initiative they took to find help. Also, we think that the levels of esteem and emotional support were much higher than the levels of tangible and network support because those kind of comments only involved words and did not have to be backed up.
The results of our coding shows that while much of our analysis was similar to the results of the Braithwaite study, some of it vastly differed. This can probably be attributed to the difference in the types of topics and people involved. Furthermore, Walther's four factors of attraction to online social support (social distance, anonymity, interaction management, and access) were evident in explaining how much and what types of support people offered.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.eating-disord/browse_thread/thread/1e0c33a0efb36a29/c704006c97171a41#c704006c97171a41
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