Informal Communication in Online Scholarly Community: Social Network Analysis of Air Listserv Group
Scholars increasingly communicate through the Internet and many online scholarly communities emerge. The informal communication structure of online scholarly community is discussed in this paper, by the case of Air listserv group. Based on conversation relations, social network analysis is applied to find out core members. Qualitative analysis is combined to expatiate on core members characteristics. Results show that there is a clear core-periphery structure in Air community, where minority of members dominate majority of conversations. Core members play important roles in information sharing and the development of Air community. Some members have prominent academic status, and their invisible college is made visible in the Internet so that their conversations can benefit other members. Because some core members are in Air executive committee, they can act as gatekeepers and make the self-organized communication structure conducive to information sharing and information quality control.
informal communication online scholarly community social network analysis scholarly communication information sharing
Kang Zhao Maosheng Lai
Information Management Department, Peking University, Beijing, China
国际会议
北京
英文
175-181
2010-11-27（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）