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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