[Air-L] Virtual communities spanning multiple online platforms

[Caroline Haythornthwaite]

Other work on multiplexity can be found in social network analysis studies of community — see research of mine suggesting media multiplexity as an attribute of strong ties, e.g., 

Haythornthwaite, C. (2002). Strong, weak and latent ties and the impact of new media. The Information Society, 18(5), 385-401.
Haythornthwaite,Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology (pp. 121-136). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Other social network approach on community, see the work by Keith Hampton, Anabel Quan-Hasse, and the personal network studies by Wellman, and/or this reference:

Rainie, Lee & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The New Social Network Operating System. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Someone else also suggested research on MOOCS, particularly relevant is connectivism by Stephen Downes, Dave Cormier and George Siemens, e.g. 

Siemens, George (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1). Available online at: http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm

/Caroline




On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 5:26 AM, David Brake <davidbrake at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I have a grad student who wants to look into this really interesting question in a literature review essay (see below) - I don't know what literatures to suggest to her however - the texts I am familiar with about virtual community all tend to look at them on a single platform. Are there multi-sited ethnographies and other studies examining this you can suggest?
> 
>> I would like to look at how presence on multiple platforms (eg, Facebook, Twitter, Web, Blog, etc) either strengthens or dilutes a community. This springs off of the discussion you and I had last week about how the platform shapes the community (or not to beat the dead McLuhan horse - how the media shapes the message). I'm curious to examine how the community changes as the platform changes - eg, is it the same community spread across multiple platforms or does each platform represent a distinct community.
> 
> It's my fault for irresponsibly finding the subject interesting ;-)
> --
> Dr David Brake, Researcher and Educator http://davidbrake.org/, @drbrake
> Author of "Sharing Our Lives Online: Risks and Exposure in Social Media” https://www.facebook.com/sharingourlivesonline <https://www.facebook.com/sharingourlivesonline>