7.1 – Don’t act like I never told ya

One of the communities that I am a part of is fan site for Kanye West. The site consists of a news queue of the latest news involving Kanye and exclusive video and audio from our favorite artist. There is also a discussion board where all of Kanye’s fans can post there feeling on the topics of the day (even the non-Kanye related ones). When one looks at the site in terms of the SNA attributes it is clear that it is a community. The message board is the main feature that displays this. When someone starts a discussion thread, members respond in a specific way to the beginning topic. In this way, a relation is started between members. This discourse between members in the presence of other members is the type of individual to individual involvement that defines the community in the SNA.

The members of the Kanye fan site share common ground. Everyone on the site who posts on the message board knows the distinction between popular rap and hip hop. Whenever anyone posts on the message board praising an artist who does not make hip hop, he/she is publicly denounced by other members on the board. The members’ knowledge of music creates a unique culture for the community. In this specific community, pop cultural icons are rejected for the icons that the members together choose to praise.

There is also a process of reciprocity in the site. Many of the threads on the message board entail one person starting a topic that agrees with the values of the site, which is then reaffirmed by various members of the site. In this way, members uphold and reinforce beliefs that are held by the group as a collective.

Assignment 7 Option 2

To look at the Brunswikian Lens model I decided to look at a friend’s profile to maximize functional achievement and therefore make accurate judgments. Knowing the target allowed me to assure cue validity (know that the cue is accurately representative of underlying personality characteristics) and cue utilization (use all possible cues because I was aware of the meaning and context of most all of them)
.
First looking at her information I noticed the self directed identity claim (symbolic statement made by occupants for their own benefit intended to reinforce their self views) of her relationship status. She is listed as being in an open relationship with another girl who I know to be just a friend, therefore this must be an inside joke between the two of them. This shows that she is agreeable according to the FFM. Her interests are a mix of self directed identity claims and other directed identity claims (symbols that have shared meanings to make statements to others about how occupants would like to be regarded). Her interest in volleyball is an other directed identity claim meant to show to others that she is athletic and enjoys playing the sport. Also in her interests are self directed identity claims that include inside jokes which are understandable only to her and to close friends. She also has her mini-feed on her page report when she has added a friend, written on some one’s wall, or joined a group etc. This is an example of interior behavioral residue or physical traces of activities conducted in the immediate environment, that environment being Facebook itself. Exterior behavioral residue (residue of behaviors performed by the individual entirely outside of those immediate surroundings) in her profile includes the pictures tagged of her documenting activities outside of Facebook as well as the “events invitations” that she plans to attend or has attended.

I was not able to asses her fully on all of the five factors: openness, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, from just her profile. She seemed to rate high on extraversion based on the large amount of friends she has (over 300) and abundance of pictures showing her going out and having fun. Agreeableness was also high based on the amount and positive nature of her wall posts, many saying “I love you” or “I miss you”. She listed many interests, was in many groups and still has her mini-feed up showing everything she does on Facebook. This shows a high amount of openness. I did not, however, find many indicators to suggest contentiousness or neuroticism.

7 Re: What's up sis?

For this assignment I decided to use the Brunswikian Lens Model to assess my sister’s personality from an online space. I used to keep up with sister with phone calls every couple of weeks, but since she is Sweden this fall doing an internship, we have been forced to catch up over e-mail. For several weeks we have been exchanging e-mails back and forth, and it is from these messages that I can apply the Brunswikian Lens Model to analyze her personality. Specifically, the model outlines four mechanisms which will be discussed that will link my sister to the environments that she inhabits: self-directed identity claims, other-directed identity claims, interior behavioral residue, and exterior behavioral residue.

According to Walther, self-directed identity claims are “symbolic statements made by occupants for their own benefit, intended to reinforce their self-views.” In our conversation through e-mail, self-directed identity claims are few and far between, since she is mainly writing things to inform me about her life, rather than remind herself things for herself. However, it can be argued that some of the things she told me, specifically how happy she is in Sweden, can serve to influence my perception and reinforce her own. Say, for instance, she has a bad day and starts to regret her decision to move to a foreign country for four months; she can read the e-mail to remind herself how much she actually is enjoying herself. Other-directed identity claims are “symbols that have shared meanings to make statements to others about how they would like to be regarded.” I found an other-directed identity claim in every e-mail my sister sent me – her signature. Recently my sister has changed her signature from Mrs. Tory Goode to Dr. Tory Goode. Although I’m pretty sure she hasn’t earned that title completely yet, she’s taken the liberty to use it before she graduates this year, mainly for the respect that such a title denotes. Interior behavioral residue is “physical traces of activities conducted in the immediate environment.” Interior behavioral residue was also quite common since we would simply hit reply to each e-mail when conversing; thus, below each new message was every e-mail we had sent to each other before in the thread. These old e-mails showed the progress of our conversation. Exterior behavioral residue is a “residue of behaviors performed by the individual entirely outside of those immediate surroundings.” The exterior behavioral residue within our e-mails was common, considering our conversations were based upon her internship and my school life. Also, she sent me a few pictures highlighting her trip to the ABBA Museum (which I am still jealous about).

Based on these findings with the Brunswikian Lens Model, in addition to the Five Factor Model, I am able to make a few assessments about my sister’s personality. I would rate my sister high in terms of extroversion, agreeableness, and openness. This is probably mostly because she is my sister and is extremely forthcoming and trusting with me. I would then rate her average in terms of conscientiousness and neuroticism. Being in Sweden has been a culture shock for her to say the least, so I would have to say that any anxiety or conformity she is undergoing is a very normal reaction.

Comment 1 and Comment 2

7.1 Where did you Transfer from?

One community which I am most proud to be a part of at Cornell is the Transfer Community. I transferred to Cornell in 2005 and spent my first year living in the Transfer Center, otherwise known as “the TC.”

The main SNA attributes are actors, relations, ties and network. Actors are generally people but are not required to be individuals. Since the transfers are a community, the actors are all individuals that transferred to Cornell. This includes not only the people that transferred my year, but anyone that has ever transferred to Cornell. Relations connect actors. In this case, transfers are connected by exchange of information, social support, or advice, rather than money, goods, or services. Haythornthwaite also writes “A pair of actors is said to have a tie when they maintain such a relation.” There are both strong and weak ties in the transfer community. An example of a strong tie is the 2nd floor of the TC. The 2nd floor is the social circle I am apart of and due to our frequent interaction and disclosure; we are still a tight knit group of friends. An example of a weak tie is between myself a 2005 transfer and an acquaintance of mine, a 2003 transfer. Although we know one another from being transfers, we are in different social circles. This weak tie has proved beneficial to me because I have contacted this person about their job. As explained, the benefit of weak ties is they “have access to different information.” A network is patterns of ties and interconnections. In the transfer network there are not just one-on-one connections but interconnections. For example, one of the transfers is in a comedy show. Not just one person but approximately 20 transfers go to every show to support him.

The transfer community also exhibits the properties of common ground and reciprocity. According too Etizioni and Etzioni, “community ties are maintained with people we feel are similar to us.” In the transfer center, our common ground is that we all transferred into Cornell from other universities. We understand the process of transferring and the feelings, thought, emotions of leaving behind another school. Some of us also share the experience of living in the Transfer Center. Reciprocity is the idea when I give to you, you give back. A example would be with my transfer acquaintance (the weak tie) I asked for job advice. He gave his advice to me and I gave back by sending a thank you note.

The transfer community is not only a face-to-face community but also online. Etizioni and Etizioni emphasizes that community that are both Ftf and CMC “bond better.” The transfer community Ftf was greatest when we all lived in the TC together. Today, the actors I have strong ties with such as my current roommates that are transfers, I still see Ftf everyday. However CMC has also allowed this community to continue with transfers not is close proximity. For example, a few of my transfer friends graduated. We are still able to remain close due to emails, facebook, iming, etc. In addition, on Facebook there are several Facebook groups that allow all transfers to identify with one another and stay in touch. An example of the strength of this online community was last year when the Transfer Canter was being demolished, all Transfers in any Transfer facebook group received a message and were asked to help in the support against getting rid of the TC. This community is most definitely as example of Gemeinschaft based on our strong interpersonal ties despite distance , shared focus, common purpose and common language and identity as transfers.

Below is the Facebook description of “Save the Transfer Center" and a picture of the TC. It is great to be a part of such a strong network!










Information
Group Info
Name:
Save the Transfer Center
Type:
Common Interest - Beliefs & Causes
Description:
This group is for those who live in the transfer center, lived in the transfer center, or just wish they had lived in the transfer center. As we all know, the TC is being torn down after this year, and transfer students will no longer have a place to call their own.It is important that we start making some noise about this, because I know how important the transfer center is. With this group I think we can start sharing more ideas and keep people involved in the process of trying to save TC.

7-2: Facebook Sleuth

I decided to use a facebook profile as a space for evaluating someone's personality based on the Brunswikian Lens Model. The Brunswikian Lens Model is an impression formation model used to assess others based on cues and how they’re used. I chose a profile at random browsing through the Cornell network and began my assessment. Focusing on the different elements of a facebook profile I was able to make assessments about the selected individual, whom I will now on refer to as Bob, according to the four mechanisms mentioned in the Lens Model that tie an individual to his/her environment.

The first two links between an individual and his/her environment are centered on identity claims. Identity claims are things that allow a person to relate their character and personality to others. I began by examining the self-directed identity claims seen in Bob’s facebook profile. Under the personal info section of his profile, Bob has a message written in some language that looks similar to Russian. Given that the average person who will be viewing this profile at Cornell does not speak Russian, it is more of a self-directed identity claim than one for others. Also, I noticed that he is a member of several groups that names don’t make much sense to me at all, another self-directed claim that only Bob and a few select others will comprehend. The identity claims directed towards others fall under the basic info at the top about Bob’s birthday, hometown, religion, gender, as well as the contact info and majority of the personal info sections. These serve the purpose of letting others gain some insight into Bob’s identity, hence other-directed identity claims.

The next two links are centered on behavioral residue. Behavioral residue is inadvertent clues we leave about our past. I began by examining interior residue on Bob’s facebook profile, which are past experiences that happened within the medium itself. This is a fairly easy task thanks to facebook’s mini-feed, which displays recent activities the user has undertaken on facebook within their profile. I then looked to the exterior behavioral residue found on Bob’s profile. I found this in his pictures of things he’s done in the past. Also, I could find bits of exterior residue lodged within wall posts and notes.

I then used Hancock and Dunham’s Five Factor Model to rate Bob. This model is a set of five fundamental personality traits that are used to assess a person’s personality. To begin, I’d rate Bob high on openness and extraversion based on the large amount of facebook friends that he has, and also the large amount of people seen in pictures with him in his profile pictures. I would also attribute rate him high on agreeableness based on his pictures, and the positive wall comments he receives commonly. Bob gets a lower rating on conscientiousness due to the fact that his main profile picture includes him shirtless, with a glass of beer in hand. However, for the same reasons as those listed above, I would give Bob a fairly low rating in neuroticism, primarily because everything points to him being a happy, sociable, and positive guy. I’d say it’s fairly safe to say most of the cues I used for this rating were fairly valid, and although there may be some forms of selective-self presentation going on, Bob utilizes these cues effectively via facebook to allow a decent personality assessment.

7.1: The Greek Community

As a freshman, it’s hard not to be exposed to the Greek life that’s a major part of Cornell. As I walk on campus each day, I always see students proudly wearing the letters of their respective fraternities and sororities.

Haythornwaite uses Social Network Analysis to examine what is exchanged, communicated, and shared by pairs of individuals in the community. In addition, she talks about social networking, common ground, and reciprocity, which produce social capital.

I am a member of a sorority, which is a community that started offline and expanded to the online community. My sorority has developed a chapter Facebook group and is also part of the national Facebook group. In CMC, we interact through Facebook, our sorority forum, listserve, and through instant messaging. These forms of communication do not even include richer media such as FtF and on the phone. Through these different communication media, we can share our thoughts and experiences. Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) state that “Communities that combine both FtF and CMC systems would be able to bond better and share values more effectively than communities that rely upon only one or the other mode of communication.” In addition, CMC allows sisters from other chapters to interact and develop relationships that they cannot form FtF. Also through CMC, sisters on Cornell campus can interact with their alumni that are elsewhere. CMC helps to further develop and solidify the community.

According to Gemeinschaft, actors share a common purpose and focus and have strong interpersonal ties. Since we are all part of the same sorority and we are all sisters, we can develop strong ties among ourselves. My sorority has sisterhood events that allow for sisters who don’t know each other well to have a better chance to bond and form stronger ties. The sisterhood events support the social networking that Haythornwaite talks about. The events, such as potlucks where we all cook and have dinner together, allow for relationships to develop and bonding to occur. Some sisters may develop stronger ties when they are from the same chapter because it allows for FtF and CMC interaction. Sisters that are distant tend to form weaker ties due to the lack of FtF interaction. Although, we may have stronger ties with some sisters and weaker ties with others, we still have a common ground. We are all sisters of the same sorority and we share the same purpose and ideals. We are committed as sisters and have shared values and a shared identity. The sisterhood I share allows me to ask for help when I need it. I would have no hesitation to ask for help from another sister and they should not hesitate to ask me for help. This supports the idea of reciprocity where individuals reinforce one another.

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/cornell-community-one-community-i.html
http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-71-camp-community.html

7.1 Lecture Class / Social Network

Some lecture classes at Cornell are pretty big, but I would not have expected any of them to act as a fully functioning dually online and offline social network. CS/INFO 130 (intro to design and programming for the web), which I am a grading TA for, plays this role. The online component of the social network are a course website with active forums, a newsgroup, and a wiki; while the offline components are lectures, sections, and weekly TA meetings.

Using the SNA to examine INFO130, it is clear that there are different classes of actors who are bound to each other through both strong and weak ties. The majority of the relationships are weak: students in the large, lecture class tend to initially not to be close with each other, nor the TAs, or and certainly not the professor. Some TAs have established relationships with each other based on prior work experience, but most are only in the same social network based on a shared skill in web-design—thus they exhibit weak ties and occasional contact with other TAs and students.

The common ground in this social network is seemingly limited. Everyone in the class is related to the Cornell community, and in some way, has an interest in web design (whether it is academic or recreational). Nevertheless, these slight similarities in the context of a goal-oriented setting (both the students and teaching staff want to see excellent websites being constructed) cause reciprocity to increase and relationships to form. Social network characteristics become enhanced through FtF interaction such as physical office hours and collaborative sections, but the real remarkable aspect of the INFO130 social community is the CMC intensity. At the beginning of the semester, students would post issues with their HTML code on the forums and TAs would respond—however, as bonds have been forming and familiarity increases, students have been answering each other’s questions (without any incentives)—and acting in a very social manner. Additionally, with respect to the teaching staff, our grading procedures and assignment creation has been increasingly collaborative—INFO130 is one of the only classes with office hours via AIM. Our weekly FtF meetings have become shorter and subsequently replaced by higher activity in the e-mail newsgroup.

As the semester becomes busier for all the actors involved in the INFO130 social network, the importance of the online components of the class seems to be drastically increasing. Having the class materials, student advice, and teaching assistance all archived and accessible through a database-backed website creates a situation where both relationships between actors are strengthening and goals are being achieved more efficiently.

Comment 1

Comment 2

7.1 Still Stuck in High School

Even though it's been long since I graduated, I'm still part of my high school community. I still occasionally visit my school website to catch up on the latest news and events. I also maintain regular contact with fellow alumni both inside and outside my graduating class. Within the community, each member is an actor. Actual interaction and direct friendship create a web of strong ties in the network, while mutual associations create a series of weaker ties. Entering college, many of the stronger ties have become weaker ties, due to the distribution and involvement of actors in different college communities. However, through the Cornell community, some of the weaker ties have actually become stronger ties because of actors common to both communities. After entering the Cornell community, I interacted more with actors that came from my high school.

The community definitely shares a common ground. We all went through the same unique experience that my high school offered. We can all make the same jokes about aspects of our high school. Consequently, we are tied together by inside information. In terms of reciprocity, the mutual friendships that form strong ties create a mesh that connects one another. Even the mutual associations, weak ties resulting from knowing a friend of a friend, criss cross as new ties form in the community. In this way, I am able to trace weak ties to underclassmen in high school. The reciprocity is especially evident when certain underclassmen in high school know several stronger tied alums.

CMC has made an impact on the high school community. It provides an easier way to maintain strong ties with individuals that are part of the high school alum community and outside of the college community. This allows communities to transcend geographical limitations. The community can be distributed and effectively communicate at the same time. There are websites for both the alum specific community and the general high school community. This allows a central point for actors to link together, enabling the creation of more ties. I also periodically receive e-mail from school lists. Although I am severed from the actual location of this community, CMC has allowed me to stay connected. From my experience, I can see how a physical location isn't absolutely required for communities.

Comment 1
Comment 2

Assignment 7.2 – Don’t Judge a Girl by her Facebook

I am a professional facebook stalker. Everyone does it, I just happen to be great at it. Therefore, for this assignment, I decided that I would take advantage of my skills and take the opportunity to look at this girl on facebook who I don’t know so well but have heard a lot about. I thought it was be a great chance to see whether my opinions of her based on real face-to-face experiences would align with my perception of her personality based on her facebook profile. I decided to use Brunswikian Lens Model to see whether the cue validity about her personality and the cue utilization which are the cues we use to get to know people achieved an accurate functional achievement of my opinion of this girl.

First, I looked at the identity claims she made to see how she saw herself and what she wanted others to know about her. I didn’t notice any self-directed identity claims where she included some type of information or inside joke that was only intended for her. There were no acronyms representing her friends or any references to that time at the beach where some guy used a sleazy pick-up line. Therefore, I decided to look at the other directed identity claims where she included information that she wanted others to know and then think about her. I saw that she was married which is hard to believe and makes me wonder about why she wants other people to see that she is married. This could possibly overlap with her self-directed identity claims and it might be some inside joke since she does not have a person who she is married to so it might just be for herself. I also thought that it was interesting that she decided to leave out the year on her birthday, but did want people to know what day it was so they wouldn’t forget. The fact that she included her major, where she is from, her high school and some of her interests and favorite books didn’t say much but did help me get a better idea of who she was from my familiarity with those places and interests.

Then, I decided to look at her interior and exterior behavioral residue to see where she’s been and guess where she is going to get a better idea of who she is. For interior behavioral residue, which shows past and helps predict future behaviors in this environment, I hit an obstacle because she does not have a handy mini-feed telling me her newest friends, wall posts, or pictures. However, I was able to do some wall-to-wall stalking which allowed me to see what she was recently writing on other people’s walls which gave me an idea of who and how she interacts with other people. For her exterior behavioral residue, which shows her behavioral outside the facebook environment, I had no trouble looking at pictures tagged to her and pictures she had up. Let me tell you that these were very scandalous pictures telling me that she was quite a party kind of gal.

After meticulously stalking her, I then compared her to the Five Factor Model to see how I would ultimately rate her. I first rated her high on openness, extroverted and did not think she was conscientious because she is very revealing in her pictures and obviously has a lot of friends (who I too knew) who seem to like her. I also did not think she was neurotic because she did not really say anything specific in her interests or books and seemed pretty laid back making her a very agreeable person who gets a long with her friends. Unfortunately, actions speak louder than words and my great disliking for her based on our social interactions overcame any misguided liking I hypothetically concluded based on the information provided on her facebook.

7.1 ESPN Fantasy Football

Social Network as mentioned in Haythornewaite (2007), “are built on the foundation of of actors who are connected or ties…” (pg 126). These ties, as Haythornewaite mentions, can be strong or weak depending on the frequency of communication between them. A community can exist in any space, but there are differences and the Social Network Analysis points them out. An SNA view of the community looks at individual relationships, rather than ‘aggregate behavior for a group, community or location’ (pg 128). As Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) defines it, a community depends not only on the crisscrossing interpersonal ties, but it also depends on the culture of the society. A perfect example of this type of community that I am involved in is ESPN Fantasy Football.

Players in my league are the actors of the community which are playing against each other for a common goal of becoming the best by defeating individual opponents every week. The culture of this community is ruled by one thing and one thing only, NFL football. At first, all players get together and draft individual players from the NFL to their team. These NFL players, throughout the season, will give the league members points depending on how well they performed during their games. In the league, two players will go head to head and the winner is the one with the most combined points.

Social capital, which is, “the ability to trust the ability to trust network members, to have a common language and to depend on networkbased mechanisms to manage behaviours’, is definitely seen in this kind of community. Since you invite the people you know to join the league, there is always a sense of trust between the league players. Moreover, the common language that dominates this league is all about sports and trash talk. Lastly, since some people have weak ties to each other in the league, they can capitalize on them and be able to get novel resources from these weak ties. A way that players can manage and interact with each other in Fantasy Football is by making ‘trades’, where one player can ask to swap one of his players with another player on someone else’s team.

ESPN Fantast Football can definitely be classified as a Gemeinschaft community that exists online since the actors truly display the three core characteristics of this kind of community. First, players have strong interpersonal ties due to going head to head every week. Second, they all have a shared focus and common purpose of drafting the best NFL players and scoring the most amounts of points. Finally, they all have a common language and identity which is sports talk and NFL football.

Assignment 7, option 1

Cornell Community

One community I belong to here at Cornell is the community of me and my roommates. We live in lower collegetown away from all the action, which allows for our community to keep to itself. There are eleven of us that live in the house, and we are a diverse group of people. There are the core seven of us that have lived together every year since we lived on the same floor freshman year. Then there are the two transfer students we met sophomore year who became good friends with us, our Ithacan friend who we met through other mutual friends freshman year, and lastly a grad student friend of one of the core seven. All of us are actors within our community and social network. The seven core actors have the closest tie since we have lived together the longest, and the two transfers have a very close tie since they transfered together, and at the same time they have close ties with us because we've known each other 3 years. Our townie friend has had a close tie with us since we met, for whatever reason we all got along great. Probably the weakest tie in the house is between the grad student and everyone he didn't know before moving in, although he still has a strong tie with his childhood friend and our roommate.

Another way I've noticed our ties are changing is the ties are strengthening between the floors. I feel I have a stronger tie with our Ithacan friend since we live together on the first floor, whereas I feel I have one of the weakest ties in the house with the grad student since he lives on the third ffloor. Likewise, I feel the guys on the third floor have a way stronger bond with the grad student since they live together. While some of us share more common ground than others, whether it be childhood friendships, transfering, or living together for 4 years, the common ground we all have now is that we live together now.

We fit in Haythornwaite's model in the sense that we all feel we are close and similar to each other, at least enough to get along for 4 years. Reciprocity appears constantly, whether it be who makes dinner sometime and shares to who picks up beer this week and gets repaid later. The recipricity of favors and exchanges of priveleges allows for us to continue our social interaction.

As far as CMC goes, I don't feel it affects our relationship within the house very much. We don't have much CMC interaction unless it's a brief message like "come downstairs." That's more reserved for when we go home for breaks and want to interact, which has probably increase the strength of the ties between friends in the summers.

7.2: Personal webpage

New Note 6

Ahoy

For this assignment, I decided to go back to a webpage that I once read in great depth a few years ago. It's changed slightly since then, but the webpage is still available and after looking through it a few times, I tried to evaluate it using the Brunswickian Lens Model.

First, I must mention that the site considers the debate between evolutionary theory and Creationism, and how it influences public laws and policies. This is all very interesting, but it says very little about the actual author of the webpage, except that one can find in a few places that he has a degree in Applied Science from the University of Toronto and other minor details. So while the source is accurate (cue validity), it has poor utilizability because it says little about the author's personality outside from the fact that he feels very passionately about evolutionary theory and Creationism in the public sphere.

However, some elements from this section are useful when it comes to describing his personality. After skimming through a few of the articles and reading some of the Hate Mails, it becomes evident that the author of this webpage is not very agreeable. He seems far too principled to be considered agreeable. He is very conscientious however, because he pays extremely close detail to small points in science and logic. He is also considerably extroverted. He is not unwilling to mention his family on the World Wide Web and he also makes some almost embarrassingly honest statements about how much he enjoys pornography. His openness seems quite low because everything on this webpage is quite dry and scientific. For the same reason, his neuroticism is almost impossible to determine.

Then I went to the personal part of his page. Note that although his scientific/sociological articles are located at www.creationtheory.org, but his personal page is at www.stardestroyer.net/Mike. The first paragraph alone speaks volumes about him. He talks about his wife and how they come from different places (more points in the extroversion and agreeableness categories). His conscientiousness seems to disappear (or more accurately, he knows when being conscientious is important and when it isn't). It seems like the author is not very neurotic, because he seems to have interest in many computer-related things, as well as science-fiction and pornography. His interest in science fiction also bolsters his score in openness.

So how does one delineate between the individual and environmental links? Well for one thing, there are almost no self-directed identity claims. Possibly the section that his wife wrote about sex toys could be considered as such, but when one reads other articles (like the rant on pornography), one realizes two things. First, that both the author and his wife are very open to talking about sex, even to complete strangers, and second, that they do not care what others think about it. Therefore, one cannot be sure whether they put it there to influence other people or not, but for sure, it's one of the few possible self-directed identity claims on the website.

Next, there are a lot of other-directed identity claims. For example, since the author goes into such great detail about things like Linux and Star Wars talk, one would assume that he would be happy to receive email about these topics. Therefore, this information is clearly present to influence how others interact with him.

Finally, there is a lot of exterior behavioral residue on his website. There is an entire section devoted entirely to photos of the author and his family on various excursions (ie. things that obviously occured OUT of the web site's realm). However, the interior behavioral residue is a little more slight. The author mentions that his website is developed and maintained using Mandriva Linux and that it conforms to XHTML standards demonstrating that he is well-versed in computer skills and puts a great deal of importance on web standards to improve the internet (otherwise, nobody would need to bother with XHTML).

7.1: My Community: Ithaca

A major community that I am proud to be a part of, is my hometown of Ithaca, NY. It is a broad community with many different attributes and properties, but it is one that has had a profound impact on my life.

I was born and raised here in Ithaca, so I am keen to my environment, and am very comfortable here. In this community, the people who live and work here are the actors. As Haythornwaite puts it, "actors are generally thought of as people, particularly when discussing community
(126)." Also in the community that is Ithaca, the actors are brought together by everyday relations. As described by Haythornwaite, "relations connect actors. The connection may be based on the exchange of intangibles such as information, social support, or advice, or of tangibles such as money, goods, or services (126)." Therefore, any time a person communicates or does business with another person in Ithaca, they are tying themselves to each other, resulting in thousands of relationships being formed every single day. If the actors in my community maintain those relations, they are said to have "ties" with those they are connecting with.
"A tie is when actors maintain relations, particularly when those relations include social and emotional support and intimacy or self-disclosure (Haythornwaite 126)." The strongest ties are usually formed between co-workers and friends, and with the vast amount of people in my community there are likely thousands of strong ties linking us together.

There is an unlimited number of things that members of the Ithaca community share, and that is called common ground. While we surely all have different opinions and feelings about our community, we all share in our experiences and are bound by this city's characteristics. When something happens in our city, many of us are affected, and we are sharing a common ground. We also share in reciprocity, as many events and interactions bind us together. When a crime happens, or when the Ithaca Festival comes yearly, or when the student's come back to town, or when we see our neighbor, or when the fireworks go off on the Fourth of July, or when David Lisa rides by on his/her bike, we are sharing in those experiences and they are what tie us all together.

And while our daily interactions are mainly face-to-face, there is also a CMC aspect that goes along with the community. "Online communication also captures many of the features of strong tie communication and outcomes associated with community (Haythornwaite 126)." The Ithaca Journal's website has a message board for comments to be posted relating to articles that are published. This results in many heated exchanges and opinions being thrown around about our community and the news that is effecting us. This adds to the reciprocity of the community and allows users to connect in more ways than just face to face.

http://forums.theithacajournal.com/viewtopic.php?t=9873
http://cornell.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2212963367

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Assignment 7, option1

The communities from my high school are among my most cherished. Having attended a small, closely-knit high school in New York City, I developed strong relationships with both students and faculty. As a current member of the alumni community, I look forward to participating in alumni-related events and strengthening the alumni community in general. Though I feel apart of the overall high school community, I more strongly associate with the smaller basketball team community. Having played basketball for one of the top New York City high-school teams, I developed a strong relationship with my teammates and coaches; and, I sustain my relationships and the community through the use of CMC, as understood by the Social Network Perspective.
Amidst a heated debate concerning the legitimacy of community in an online setting, Haythornwaite asks in her article, “Social Networks and Online Communities,” the appropriate question of “how can community exist without physical co-location?” In contrast to earlier theories of social networking and community that dwell primarily on geography, Haythornwaite claims that communities can exist without geographical proximity. Implementing the Social Network Perspective, which focuses instead on interpersonal ties, shared focus, common purposes, and common identities, Haythronwaite ultimately proves that despite the leanness of computer-mediated-communication, communities undoubtedly thrive in CMC settings. As Haythornwaite states that the Social Network Perspective liberates the community from its geographical constraints, she suggests that it “provides a means of examining communities whether maintained online or offline.” Central to the Social Network perspective, then, is an emphasis on the exchange of information and advice, social support, mutual help, shared history, and language.
Analyzing my high school basketball team community with a Social Network Perspective, it is evident that my community consists of both strong and weak ties. Former members of the basketball team that continue to see each other on a regular basis form strong ties; and, members of the team that interact infrequently contribute to the community as weak ties. Both strong and weak ties sustain the community as they offer members invaluable networking opportunities after college. Ultimately, the basketball community thrives not on a geographic proximity, but on the community members’ common ground, and reciprocal devotion to the school’s basketball program.
As Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) “emphasize how support via multiple modes is likely to have the best community outcomes,” it is evident that communities that employ both face-to-face and computer-mediated-communication, more effectively bond and share values, as opposed to communities that rely only on one form of communication. My basketball community supports this claim as it recently shifted from a strictly face-to-face community, to a community employing both face-to-face functions and CMC community forms of outreach and alumni involvement, resulting now in a stronger sense of community than it had provided in a FtF community alone. In this regard, the synergy of online and offline communication greatly improves the community to which I belong.

7.2 Only 68 Friends?!?....Seriously?!

As I sit watching Monday Night Football with my buddy, I slyly examine her Facebook profile without her knowledge with the intent of analyzing her through the Brunswikian Lens Model. The hardest aspect of her profile to pick out is obviously her self-directed identity claims, as Facebook’s socially-oriented nature discourages self-intended identity expressions. I feel the closest that my friend comes in this aspect is her selection of photographs, which she can edit in order to shape not only her image in the eyes of other, but also herself. Facebook can also serve, in many cases, as the universal “What the hell did I do last night” reminder, reinforcing one’s own identity.

One of the most obvious other-directed identity claims that I feel we don’t realize is one is the birthday date so prominently displayed on profiles. In addition to this, the current and upcoming birthdays are displayed on our home pages (a function that existed before News Feed, no less), which results in many people posting birthday wishes on our walls even if they don’t really know us well enough to do so in person. My friend’s birthday is August 7th, and even if I forget that, Facebook will remind me without my asking. In this way, the birthday line is an other-directed identity claim, often going beyond a simple claim to in-your-face informational barrage. Her News Feed serves, clearly, as her interior behavioral residue, and anytime she updates or adds photos or attends an event, I am forced to see that it happened just by logging in. Finally, when analyzing her exterior behavioral residue, what jumps out at me, is her activities and interests, as one would expect. But added to that is her distinct “lack” of friends (compared to everyone else) which exemplifies her lack of involvement, not in the world, but in Facebook itself. As she herself puts it, “I don’t ‘friend’ people, they ‘friend’ me.” This deficiency in the friend count is in its own way indicative of my friend’s activity level on the site itself, an exterior behavioral residue.

Taking this information and applying it to the Five Factor model, I find myself rating her low on openness and extraversion, and average on agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. I would attribute these ratings to the somewhat sparse information presented on my friend’s Facebook page, because I know for a fact that in person she is pleasant, very outgoing, fun, self-aware, and not in the least bit neurotic. So it seems Facebook is not the end-all and be-all of personality presentation, as this online medium lacks when compared with FtF interactions and evaluations.

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/assignment-72-dont-judge-girl-by-her.html

http://comm245red.blogspot.com/2007/10/72-personal-webpage.html

7.1 my community at cornell

One community that I am involved with at Cornell University is my sorority, Delta Gamma. The Delta Gamma house is located on North Campus and over 40 active members live there, while another 60 active members live elsewhere in Ithaca. The Delta Gamma social network is made up of ties and actors. These 100 girls are the actors in the Delta Gamma social network. The 40 actors that live in the house together have strong ties because they are in contact with one another everyday. Of the 60 actors who do not live in the house, some have strong ties because they live with other Delta Gamma members in Collegetown. Some of the actors have weak ties (rare contact) because they live with friends not in Delta Gamma. The common ground that every member of Delta Gamma shares is that every girl is required to live in the house for at least one year. By living in the house, every girl shares commitment to the Delta Gamma culture. Haythornwaite states, “Community ties are maintained with people we feel are similar to us, who we expect to understand and concur with our experience and viewpoint and with whom we share commitment to the common culture or enterprise” (p.129). Reciprocity is defined as a mutual interchange of favors or privileges. One example of reciprocity in my community is being the president of Delta Gamma. Only one girl of the 100 active members in Delta Gamma wanted to be the president. Being the president requires a lot of time and hard work. However, the president gets to live in the biggest and nicest room in the house with air-conditioning and free cable. Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) state that “Communities that combine both f2f and CMC systems would be able to bond better and share values more effectively than communities that rely upon only one or the other mode of communication” (p.131) I agree completely with the statement above, and CMC plays a very large role in the Delta Gamma social network. In Delta Gamma, the president emails all the members notes about chapter meetings, members receive emails about sorority events (events such as formals and crush parties to sporting and musical events members are in to parent weekend events). There are also numerous Delta Gamma groups on facebook.

Assignment 7, option 1: sports community

Some of the most prevalent groups here on campus at Cornell are its athletic teams. They are easily identifiable by the famed red Teagle shorts and over-sized grey tee, or even better yet by the full Teagle sweatsuit. You may spot them frequenting Trillium, loading up tray-fulls of omelettes, homefries and the like after an early morning workout. You may even wonder why they seem to always hang out together. This is because being a student-athlete at such a prestigious university like Cornell requires a great deal of commitment and dedication.

Making the adjustment to college life my freshman year was greatly alleviated by the close-knit structure of a sports team. According to Haythornwaite, social networks are united by common ground, strong and weak ties, and reciprocity. In addition, relationships are “examined for the way they build network-level characteristics such as co-orientation to common goals and purposes and trust in the ability of the network to regulate behavior.(125)”
The common ground forming the basis of the social network which is the women’s ice hockey team is strong in that we are all focused on the same goals. This element is necessary for the success of any sports team; if all members are not on the same page the team will not grow. Common ground also includes shared values. In this social network, shared value means dedication to both academics and athletics. When the weekend comes and we are forced to pass up other social opportunities, we know that it is a shared feeling and we aren’t alone. Reciprocity in a social network is the give and take required of any relationship. In a team community, this means making sacrifices for teammates. Whether it’s giving rides to freshmen so they don’t have to walk all the way back to North Campus in the snow or helping a teammate with a paper in a class you took the previous semester, reciprocity is necessary for the team to survive. The character that is shown outside of contest is also displayed in games. Finally, strong ties are described by Haythornwaite as utilizing frequent contact. These relationships tend to be dense, similar and they have access to the same resources and information. I always refer to my team as my Cornell family because I spend more time with them than any other people on campus.

http://www.cornellbigred.com/index.asp?path=whockey&tab=womens

7:1 "Doostang, where talent lives"

Over the summer, I ran into a family friend’s daughter who recently graduated from Stanford University. We started talking about her new job and I told her about my difficulties in finding a summer internship in our area of expertise. She mentioned that she would be able to help get me “into the system” if I sent her my resume. I immediately sent her my information only to find out that her department would not be taking on any interns in summer 2008. I was disappointed, but I understood that there wasn’t much she could do about it. I expected not to hear from her henceforth since we are weakly tied (rare contact) and have never kept in touch. She, however, completely related to my hardships in job searching with constant disappointment/rejection, so every few weeks she emailed me updates (internships in her company in other locations, etc.) and tips. That’s when she sent me an invitation to join Doostang.

Doostang is an online community site primarily used for job search and job posts in which people can join only if invited by other members. The basis of the invitation-only requirement is so that members of the group are trusted by and linked to at least one other member to ensure better “quality” in the job market - this is advantageous to employers and potential employees. Once you create your profile, you can join groups and forums that range from strictly recruiting to shared interests and hobbies. Doostang would be considered a Gemeinschaft because it is based on strong interpersonal ties, shared focus of career networking, and common language and identity. In this Utopic community, people are engaged intellectually and are all connected. In general, the users share a common ground of job pursuit. Within the common ground are subgroups formed from more specific interests of major, career, and schools. This allows for more attraction to form between members since there will be a greater proportion of things in common. Since most people here are weakly tied by alumni and friends, users will access the variety and uniqueness of resources for work and/or leisure (i.e. – interview tips or vacation spots.) These resources give the Doostang community added value in social capital because members have an inherent trust in each other and depend on the network to manage behaviors and expectations.

The nature of this group utilizes CMC mechanisms, otherwise, it would not be able to exist offline as such a large group with so many resources. Doostang thrives mostly in CMC, where the “action” occurs – applying, posting, replying, etc. Thus, besides knowing the people who are your friends, there is not a strong offline/online synergy. However, some members meet up ftf for interview tips, or if they are looking for company while on business travel. Also, in the case that a user receives a job from the site, they may form a stronger tie with the member who posted as they see each other in the workplace.

The success of Doostang relies on reciprocity because if people are not willing to share their experience then there is no gain in joining the site. According to Haythornthwaite, the community shows reciprocity because members here give help without requiring any payback. Users will reply to messages or forums regarding advice on resumes or even where to find classes in a shared hobby.

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7.1: Girls Rule, Boys Drool!

I am the president of a fairly small community within the ILR School, the ILR Women’s Caucus. We are a group that was created to support our fellow ILR women classmates and the Ithaca community. Some of the events we have include raising money for the Ithaca Breast Cancer Alliance’s (IBCA) annual walk-a-thon with a bake sale (see picture above), participating in the IBCA walk-a-thon (see picture above), participating as one of the teams in Cornell’s “Into the Streets” day, holding a personal financial planning workshop, and having an ILR Women Faculty mixer. Besides for our FtF events, we also meet in an ILR classroom every week on Thursdays at 5pm. With the recent increase in internet capabilities, just this year the ILR Women’s Caucus was affected by CMC. We now have an official listserv, ilr_womens_caucus-l@cornell.edu, a Facebook group, and a Google calendar. The ILR Women’s Caucus is stronger than ever as it is now affected by both offline (FtF meetings and events) and online (listserv, Facebook, Google) synergies.

Our online community was not only created to keep up with the internet community trend but also for members to stay informed who may not able to attend every meeting and/or event. The listserv was seen as an important facet for our group as email is currently the most efficient way of relaying large amounts of information to a large group or community. We use this listserv to send out meeting reminders and summaries of every meeting, upcoming deadlines for RSVPing to events, and information on events members may hear about on campus that relate to our group’s purpose. With the growing popularity of Facebook, a Facebook group was created. It’s purpose is to identify who is in the group and those that are on the executive board, who to contact, a link to our calendar, and a group photos section for members to upload, tag, and share. Our Google calendar was created and is continually updated as another way for all members to keep track of upcoming events’ date, location and time. CMC has provided our actors, or members, with strong ties as everyone has access to the same information and resources (listserv, Facebook, Google) and has frequent interaction with the help of the listserv.

Based on our members’ common interest in the group’s purpose, countless FtF interactions, and accessibility of information in CMC, the ILR Women’s Caucus can be categorized as Gemeinschaft with high social capital. The common language and identity associated within my community is demonstrated with our several CMC information references. For instance, photos that are uploaded onto our Facebook group do not need to have titles stating where they were taken and what the activity’s purpose was because members already know this information (also categorical common ground). For non-members viewing our site, there may be some confusion with the location and purpose of each photo. The Facebook group also demonstrates a utopic view by showing the women who are connected to this common interest and displaying some of our social events with photos and a link to our Google calendar.

Additionally, social capital is present because there is social network (bonding with participation in events and meetings), common ground (members have a shared focus and commitment), and reciprocity (members have the ability to send out information to listserv about other events on campus) within our egocentric network. Effects are realized when it is mobilized to recruiters with the flow of information amongst people within the group to outside sources for potential positions, the influence the ties have on recruiters when affiliation is seen on their resume, and the reputation or social credential actors gain when they are associated with an executive board position within our community.

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7, Option 1: A major COMMunity

At Cornell, one of the communities I immediately became a part of was the communication department. From the social network analysis (SNA) standpoint, the individuals associated with the communication department form a community not simply due to our common geographic location (anyone else live in Kennedy?) but rather a combination of strong and weak ties, common ground, and reciprocity.

According to Haythornwaite (2007), “social network analysis focuses on what is happening between people, within collectives and across boundaries, in order to find what kind of collective exists” (p.124). Social networks are composed of actors (in this case—faculty, staff, undergraduates, and graduates) who are tied together by one or more relations. All of the ties come together to form a social network. A tie is considered strong when actors maintain many relations (which are frequently reciprocal). A tie is weak when the interaction is infrequent and we usually share less common ground and are a part of different social circles than these individuals.

Common ground plays a role in this community since ties are maintained with those individuals who we feel are similar to us (due to our association with the communication major) and who we share certain commitments with. The amount of common ground may differ between various members of the community which can affect the strength of our links. A student who does research with a particular professor may have a stronger connection with him/her than another student based on that common research interest. In addition, each student may have a stronger tie with their faculty advisor who provides them with information and assists them when needed. Furthermore, as we break up into our respective focus areas, each student may hold stronger ties with those who they have more classes with rather than those who they had one class with freshman year.

Belonging to the same community (and in particular, having strong ties) leads individuals to ask for and receive help or information from one another. Reciprocity entails doing things for others and others doing things for you as well. In the communication community, students may choose to help each other with course work with the understanding that the other student will help you when you need it too. Haythornwaite also discusses generalized reciprocity which entails members helping others without receiving anything in return. Instead, “the return” may come from the way the individual who received help in turn helps others in the community (p. 127). As a communication peer advisor, I am willing to help out underclassman without necessarily getting anything back in turn—knowing that it will benefit the communication department overall if new undergraduates are eventually able to pass on the information they receive.

It would make sense for the communication department to be at the forefront of technology, and therefore interact in the CMC environment. Haythornwaite (2007) refers to Etzioni and Etzioni’s study which found that “communities that combine both f2f and CMC systems would be able to bond better and share values more effectively than communities that rely upon only one or the other mode of communication” (p.131). Attending class and group meetings face-to-face clearly impact the community however, keeping in touch through course e-mails, mass e-mails from Danielle Dean, club list-serve e-mails, Facebook groups, etc. definitely enhance this sense of community. Through the communication website and various communication list-serves members of the community are able to access important information. To further connect the communities there are various Facebook groups dedicated to the major, and to clubs associated with the major. While these CMC spaces are not necessarily places in which the members of the community frequently interact with one another (there are no current discussions in these Facebook groups and I rarely receive messages due to being a part of them) they still enhance our community. For example, being a part of the group “Communication—You wish your major was this group” acts to enhance our positive sense of group identity and places us in to a smaller communication social network visible to the online community.

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Assignment #7, Option 2: Brunswikian Lens Model

I used the Brunswikian Lens Model and the Five Factor Model to assess my friend’s personality through an online chat space. Although I speak with my friend both in person and over AIM quite frequently, I have never made actual personality judgments using specific models. On Saturday afternoon I spoke with my friend over AIM. We talked about the events of the previous night, as well as the school work that we should be doing. My friend was also asking for advice on whether or not she should IM a guy that she’s been interested in. Our conversation ended after about two hours, and I was then able to review the conversation and make personality assessments.

In terms of the Brunswikian Lens Model, I focused on the associations I drew about my friend in a judgmental context. First, I assessed our two hour AIM interaction on the basis of cue validity and utilization. Cue validity explains the cues that accurately describe someone’s personality characteristics; cue utilization explains the cues that are actually used to make judgments about others. My online conversation with my friend reached functional achievement because of the co-occurrence of both cue validity and utilization. My friend’s explanation of her behaviors and interests all appeared to be truthful and therefore very accurate of her personality characteristics; I used each of the cues to help me make assessments. I did not use the “context effects” feature of the Brunswikian Lens Model because speaking over AIM did not give me access to pictures or characteristics of any of my friend’s other friends or acquaintances which could have affected how I perceived her attractiveness.

The Brunswikian Lens Model also includes four mechanisms that link individuals to their environment that influenced the personality judgments I made. The first two mechanisms are identity claims. Self-directed identity claims are what a person purposefully does to show something about his or her identity and reinforce self-views. This includes a part of my friend’s AIM profile that includes a quote about friendship. The kindness and affection in this quote, that she chose to display, shows the agreeableness of her personality. Other-directed identity claims are when one displays symbols of their identity with shared meanings in order to communicate something to others. The little picture icon that my friend has decided to include in her IM box is a changing advertisement for the release of Jessica Simpson’s “Public Affair.” This is an other-directed identity claim because my friend is trying to express her love for Jessica Simpson and her fun dance music through a shared symbol of a popular artist that she idealizes. I am able to make the personality judgment that my friend is extraverted, seeking out exciting fun activities.

The final two individual-environment linking mechanisms are behavioral residues. Interior behavior residues are traces of a person’s behavior within the immediate environment that are left there. The immediate environment in the case of my conversation with my friend was AIM. During our conversation, the IM box told me that my friend’s “[screen name] is typing.” These were temporary traces of her typing behavior that were left in the AIM online space on and off throughout our conversation. Our entire conversation was also recorded in the IM box, which gave me the ability to scroll up and re-read her words; these lasting traces allowed me to back and make even more detailed personality assessments using the Five Factor Model. Exterior behavioral residues are behaviors that a person does outside of the immediate environment. These were expressed in the away message that my friend kept up while we were talking, which said “reading.” Although she was talking to me, she was also attempting to get some work done outside of AIM. This led me to make the personality assessments that my friend is moderately conscientious, as she was attempting to multi-task by working and having an AIM chat.

Using Hancock and Dunham’s Five Factor Model, I first rated my friend high on extraversion because she was talkative and assertive. She was very inquisitive, asking me many questions about what I had done the night before. I also rated her high on agreeableness because of her pro-social behavior; she didn’t try and challenge me or start any arguments. I rated her at a moderate level of conscientiousness because though she knew she had work to do and was planning out what she wanted to accomplish, she continued to procrastinate for two hours by talking to me. My friend’s openness rating was also high because of the variety of experiences she was recounting for me, and her great interest in all of them. Finally, I rated her at a moderate neuroticism level because of the anxiety she was experiencing over IMing a guy. I was able to make a detailed personality assessment with the combination of these five trait factors and the lens model.

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7.1 ..:: <3 i love KCCE <3::..

The community I am involved in both in CMC and FTF is KCCE, Korean Church at Cornell English ministry. I became involved with this social network first through FTF interactions. When I first came to Cornell, I had heard about this church and went on a Sunday and met people through face-to-face interactions. Later on, through multiple forms of online groups, I joined this community through CMC. An obvious source of social network that included KCCE is a Facebook group called KCCE (Korean Church at Cornell English Ministry). Another, which is also a link on the Facebook group profile, is KCCE’s own website, www.kccem.org. Several other CMC that KCCE uses are flickr.com, a blogring on xanga.com called “..:: <3>” as well as a Cornell listserv called kcce-l@cornell.edu.

I would describe this social network as having a high social capital. As Haythornwaite (2007) explains actors, relations, ties and networks, she explains how the amount of information that flows from one “actor” to another is important in creating strong ties and relationships with other “actors” in the same social network. At the same Haythornawite (2007) addresses how Rafaeli and Sudweeks (1997) found that, “Interactivity in online communication, pertaining to the way ‘messages in a sequence realte to each other and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages’ (online) and associated with outcomes of engagement, acceptance, satisfaction, performance quality, motivation, fun learning, openness and sociability” (p. 126). I can definitely see this with the social network of KCCE. Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) in Haythornwaite (2007) state that communities have “relationships that crisscross and reinforce one another, rather than simply a chain of one-on-one relationships” (p. 129). I think this can apply to the KCCE community because there are several different types of CMC that we use to communicate with one another and that overlap because within KCCE there are relationships with different groups such as classes (freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior), gender, small group (accountability group), bible study group, people you have classes with, etc. So for KCCE members, there are many crisscrossing relationships that contribute to the KCCE community having a strong tie. What also contributes to the social capital of this social network is as Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) state the fact that the members, "Require a measure of commitment to a set of shared values, morals, meanings and a shared historical identity" (p. 129). KCCE has all these attributes because the majority of us are Korean-American students at Cornell so we all have come from the same cultural background. At the same time, we all gather together weekly for the same purpose, as Christians, to worship the same God and we all believe in the same set of values and morals pertaining to the Bible. This, I would consider to be a very strong tie that, though we might not have anything else in common, is a tie that brings us all together. The common ground of Christianity is a strong one that makes KCCE a social network with high social capital.

CMC does play a significant role with the KCCE network through many different types of online blogs and emails. We all meet every Friday and Sunday on a weekly basis which is FTF, but use CMC to communicate when certain activities are, to comment and give feedback on such activities, to discuss perhaps what that particular sermon was on, clarify any questions people may have, as well as reach out through email following up on people who might have been visiting KCCE for the first time. So for KCCE, there is definitely a lot of interactions and significant roles both FTF and CMC play.

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Assignment 7.1: Camp Community

I have been going to the same summer camp for the past 10 years. This camp, on the surface, is not very unique from other overnight opportunities: we have athletics, arts and crafts, waterfront activities, and swim. However, what keeps me coming back year after year is the overwhelmingly strong sense of community that develops throughout the 8 week summer. Within the large community that is camp, there are subsections of smaller groups. There are four villages divided by age and gender, and within each village there are further divisions based on age. There is also a divide between the staff community, Counselors in training, and campers. Hawthornewaite’s SNA approach to social networking looks at how each member of the community interacts at a micro level. Factors that are important to consider include reciprocity, common ground, and the specific ties that make give the community its identity. In this case, there are so many different bonds and complex social networks that exist that it is difficult to draw lines between them. Even people that appear to have very little in common, such as a 8 year old camper and a 25 year old staff member, each are intimately connected by at least the one bond of the common experience of attending camp that summer.

The hobby system, which allows campers and staff to break into smaller groups and work in an area of interest, is an example of common ground. Hobbies create min communities within the larger camp context and further define an individuals group identity. This also reinforces further relationship development as the actors get to meet people who they normally would not get a chance to talk to.

Reciprocity is another important factor of a community. The staff's job is to provide a safe and fun summer for the campers. While they aren’t aware of it, campers are always reciprocating the hard work of the staff through their laughter and great material humor.

At this point, I have only talked about this community as it appears offline in FTF. However, CMC is vital in maintaining and facilitating the close bonds that were formed over the summer. During the last morning before everyone goes home, amongst the common site of tears are campers copying down all of their new friends screen names, email addresses and phone numbers so that they can keep in touch over the year. Likewise, for the staff, a directory complete with this information is sent out over the list serve. Facebook groups ranging from inside jokes (an example of a self directed identity claim of the Brunswikian model) to general camp appreciation groups are numerous and very popular.

Much to my dismay, each summer I receive a slew of facebook friend requests from campers who put me in the awkward position of deciding whether I should be clicking “view limited profile only” when accepting. Facebook fosters the development of both strong and weak ties and provides an online forum for talking about memories and the anticipation of the following summer. CMC is the glue that holds the community in place over the 10 months out of the year where we aren’t together.

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Assignment 7, Option 2: Friend of a Friend

I figured that Facebook would be a good place to test out the Brunswikian Lens Model to assess someone’s personality. When deciding what profile to analyze, I decided not to look at the profiles of people I know well, or who go to Cornell. To be an independent observer, I analyzed the profile of a friend of a friend. I have never spoken with this person, so I was able to analyze her profile objectively.

Examples of self-identity claims are found in the basic information. Listing “conservative” under Political Views, “men” under Interested In, or certain things in the Interests and About Me sections tell about the individual and reinforces her views. Listing a friend’s name under Interests and About me shows that this girl is agreeable. She has a close friend whom she gets along with very well. This is probably also an inside joke between the two of them. Thus, not only does this increase perceived agreeableness, but it is also a self-identity claim asserting that she enjoys humor.

Groups, Friends, and Applications are other-identity claims. Adding the Yankees Faithful application shows everyone she is a Yankee fan. Her groups tell Facebook users that she likes Family Guy, the New York Giants, and her hometown. That a lot of her groups seem to be based around friends and/or inside jokes is more evidence of her agreeableness. The number of identity claims she has on her profile speaks to her high level of openness. Some of these claims do not reveal such intimate information, but she still reveals a lot about herself. Additionally, membership in groups supporting the fight against breast cancer, and showing sympathy to the students of Virginia Tech after last year’s shooting, show conscientiousness. We don’t know of her actions in support of these causes, but her awareness and desire to reach out to others show conscientiousness.

While nobody can be in Facebook, the Mini-Feed is as close to interior behavioral residue as Facebook can get. Her list of Friends added and Friends whose walls she has recently posted on shows her agreeableness even more.

Facebook photos, especially those put up by other users, are good examples of exterior behavioral residue. This girl’s pictures show her with a lot of friends, making funny faces, and striking funny poses. This suggests that she is very extraverted. These pictures also display more proof of her agreeableness.

Overall, I saw no signs of neuroticism, so I would say this person ranks very low in that category. From the profile elements I mentioned above, however, I would rate her high in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

The Brunswikian Lens Model is a good way to analyze people’s personalities because it covers a lot of different forms of self-expression.


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