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105-464: Lurkers are referred to using many names, including browsers, read-only participants, non-public participants, legitimate peripheral participants, vicarious learners, or sleepers. Since the beginning of computer-mediated communication lurking has been a concern for community members. The term "lurk" can be traced back to when it was first used during the 14th century. The word referred to someone who would hide in concealment, often for an evil purpose. In

210-408: A community or society " More simply put, if group members do not follow a norm, they become tagged as a deviant. In the sociological literature , this can often lead to them being considered outcasts of society . Yet, deviant behavior amongst children is somewhat expected. Except the idea of this deviance manifesting as a criminal action, the social tolerance given in the example of the child

315-451: A logic of appropriateness and logic of consequences ; the former entails that actors follow norms because it is socially appropriate, and the latter entails that actors follow norms because of cost-benefit calculations. Three stages have been identified in the life cycle of a norm: (1) Norm emergence –  norm entrepreneurs seek to persuade others of the desirability and appropriateness of certain behaviors; (2) Norm cascade – when

420-500: A smartphone with an internet connection. They also rely on social media networks, videoconferences , pornographic video sharing websites, dating pages, online chat rooms, apps, dark web sites, and other platforms. They use online payment systems and cryptocurrencies to hide their identities. Millions of reports of these crimes are sent to authorities annually. New laws and police procedures are needed to combat crimes involving CMC. Social norms A social norm

525-436: A behavior is exhibited, and how much the group approves of that behavior. Although not considered to be formal laws within society, norms still work to promote a great deal of social control . They are statements that regulate conduct. The cultural phenomenon that is the norm is the prescriber of acceptable behavior in specific instances. Ranging in variations depending on culture, race, religion, and geographical location, it

630-447: A better understanding of the other members of the group. By taking these steps, lurkers gain more cultural capital . Soroka and Raffaeli define cultural capital as "the knowledge that enables an individual to interpret various cultural codes." In other words, it is the knowledge of the norms of the community. They found that people that lurk longer before posting had greater levels of cultural capital. A lurker can gain cultural capital in

735-451: A biased sample. Interviews are a good way to gain an understanding of the problem space. Interviews can also be used to answer the question of why and how lurkers lurk. The sampling must be done carefully or there could be a response bias. Observation is a good way to understand the context within the community. This method can be very intrusive though. If the observation is just on the community in general than no information may be gained about

840-668: A boundary that allows for a differentiation between those that belong in a specific social setting and those that do not. For Talcott Parsons of the functionalist school, norms dictate the interactions of people in all social encounters. On the other hand, Karl Marx believed that norms are used to promote the creation of roles in society which allows for people of different levels of social class structure to be able to function properly. Marx claims that this power dynamic creates social order . James Coleman (sociologist) used both micro and macro conditions for his theory. For Coleman, norms start out as goal oriented actions by actors on

945-473: A child who has painted on the walls of her house, if she has never done this before she may immediately seek a reaction from her mother or father. The form of reaction taken by the mother or father will affect whether the behaviour is likely to occur again in the future. If her parent is positive and approving of the behaviour it will likely reoccur (reinforcement) however, if the parent offers an aversive consequence (physical punishment, time-out, anger etc...) then

1050-421: A community is correlated with the topic of the community, the size of the community, and the amount of traffic within the community. The number of lurkers is nearly double in technical support groups compared to health support groups. The nature of the topic may be responsible for the difference in the number of lurkers. The number of members in the community can also affect the amount of lurking that takes place. As

1155-613: A community just by spending a lot of time in it. A person that has more cultural capital will benefit more from the community. In their study on interactive mailing lists, Takahashi, Fujimoto, and Yamasaki demonstrated that "active lurkers", or individuals who spread content from an online group to individuals external to the online group, help spread beneficial information to surrounding communities. Lurkers can also develop stores of valuable knowledge as they lurk which may be helpful later should they decide to contribute. For example, users in open source software communities can quickly discover

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1260-682: A comprehensive way that covers different aspects of the learning process. The nature of CMC means that it is easy for individuals to engage in communication with others regardless of time, location, or other spatial constraints to communication. In that CMC allows for individuals to collaborate on projects that would otherwise be impossible due to such factors as geography, it has enhanced social interaction not only between individuals but also in working life. In addition, CMC can also be useful for allowing individuals who might be intimidated due to factors like character or disabilities to participate in communication. By allowing an individual to communicate in

1365-652: A computer-mediated format has an effect on many different aspects of an interaction. Some of those that have received attention in the scholarly literature include impression formation, deception, group dynamics, disclosure reciprocity, disinhibition and especially relationship formation. CMC is examined and compared to other communication media through a number of aspects thought to be universal to all forms of communication, including (but not limited to) synchronicity , persistence or "recordability", and anonymity . The association of these aspects with different forms of communication varies widely. For example, instant messaging

1470-470: A contribution because they lack the motivation that belonging and satisfaction bring. In the case of social networking websites , lurkers experience less intimacy and personal well-being. Lurkers in Facebook can experience loneliness as they watch other, more social members of the community participate. Lurkers can also negatively influence other community members. If community members can see that someone

1575-478: A descriptive norm as people's perceptions of what is commonly done in specific situations; it signifies what most people do, without assigning judgment. The absence of trash on the ground in a parking lot, for example, transmits the descriptive norm that most people there do not litter . An Injunctive norm, on the other hand, transmits group approval about a particular behavior; it dictates how an individual should behave. Watching another person pick up trash off

1680-433: A face-to-face communication. Online impression management, self-disclosure, attentiveness, expressivity, composure and other skills contribute to competence in computer mediated communication. In fact, there is a considerable correspondence of skills in computer-mediated and face-to-face interaction even though there is great diversity of online communication tools. Anonymity and in part privacy and security depends more on

1785-629: A five-day period qualified to potentially win a prize) were a helpful mechanism to promote posting among lurkers. Similarly, Antin and Cheshire's survey of lurkers suggests that reading behavior in Misplaced Pages is a sort of participation which helps new users to learn about the online community and advance toward more comprehensive participation. While Rashid et al. did not examine lurkers directly, they conducted an experimental study on MovieLens that investigated how to raise low contribution rates in online communities. They discovered that participants showed

1890-638: A given identity." In this definition, norms have an "oughtness" quality to them. Michael Hechter and Karl-Dieter Opp define norms as "cultural phenomena that prescribe and proscribe behavior in specific circumstances." Sociologists Christine Horne and Stefanie Mollborn define norms as "group-level evaluations of behavior." This entails that norms are widespread expectations of social approval or disapproval of behavior. Scholars debate whether social norms are individual constructs or collective constructs. Economist and game theorist Peyton Young defines norms as "patterns of behavior that are self-enforcing within

1995-687: A group." He emphasizes that norms are driven by shared expectations: "Everyone conforms, everyone is expected to conform, and everyone wants to conform when they expect everyone else to conform." He characterizes norms as devices that "coordinate people's expectations in interactions that possess multiple equilibria." Concepts such as "conventions", "customs", "morals", "mores", "rules", and "laws" have been characterized as equivalent to norms. Institutions can be considered collections or clusters of multiple norms. Rules and norms are not necessarily distinct phenomena: both are standards of conduct that can have varying levels of specificity and formality. Laws are

2100-586: A higher likelihood of de-lurking. Soroka and Rafaeli also found that irrespective of the amount of cultural capital, de-lurking becomes less likely as time passes. The design and management of online communities can also affect de-lurking and participation. Resnick, Janney, Buis, and Richardson introduced a community element to the online walking program called Stepping Up to Health and discussed various issues of beginning an online community, including transforming lurkers into users. They discovered that posting contests (i.e., where users who made their first posts during

2205-526: A higher likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to someone than when ratings were associated with the probability of having previously watched a movie. Furthermore, they found that participants showed an enhanced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to MovieLens subgroups than when ratings were valuable to the entire MovieLens online community, and participants demonstrated an enhanced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to individuals who liked similar movie genres as

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2310-563: A highly formal version of norms. Laws, rules and norms may be at odds; for example, a law may prohibit something but norms still allow it. Norms are not the equivalent of an aggregation of individual attitudes. Ideas, attitudes and values are not necessarily norms, as these concepts do not necessarily concern behavior and may be held privately. "Prevalent behaviors" and behavioral regularities are not necessarily norms. Instinctual or biological reactions, personal tastes, and personal habits are not necessarily norms. Groups may adopt norms in

2415-476: A key component in sustaining social norms. Individuals may also import norms from a previous organization to their new group, which can get adopted over time. Without a clear indication of how to act, people typically rely on their history to determine the best course forward; what was successful before may serve them well again. In a group, individuals may all import different histories or scripts about appropriate behaviors; common experience over time will lead

2520-690: A location of their choosing, a CMC call allows a person to engage in communication with minimal stress. Making an individual comfortable through CMC also plays a role in self-disclosure, which allows a communicative partner to open up more easily and be more expressive. When communicating through an electronic medium, individuals are less likely to engage in stereotyping and are less self-conscious about physical characteristics. The role that anonymity plays in online communication can also encourage some users to be less defensive and form relationships with others more rapidly. While computer-mediated communication can be beneficial, technological mediation can also inhibit

2625-470: A message stating they were logging the chat, an opt-in message for logging, and opt-out message, or nothing at all. 63.3% of chat rooms kicked out the experimenters after they gave any sort of message, demonstrating a dislike of explicit chat logging. However, 29% of rooms kicked out the experimenters even though they did not post anything, showing a disregard for lurkers. Lurking is just one form of free-riding that can happen within an Internet community, and

2730-410: A norm becomes a part of the group's operational structure and hence more difficult to change. While possible for newcomers to a group to change its norms, it is much more likely that the new individual will adopt the group's norms, values, and perspectives, rather than the other way around. Deviance is defined as " nonconformity to a set of norms that are accepted by a significant number of people in

2835-650: A norm obtains broad acceptance; and (3) Norm internalization – when a norm acquires a "taken-for-granted" quality. Norms are robust to various degrees: some norms are often violated whereas other norms are so deeply internalized that norm violations are infrequent. Evidence for the existence of norms can be detected in the patterns of behavior within groups, as well as the articulation of norms in group discourse. In some societies, individuals often limit their potential due to social norms, while others engage in social movements to challenge and resist these constraints. There are varied definitions of social norms, but there

2940-488: A norm raises its robustness. It has also been posited that norms that exist within broader clusters of distinct but mutually reinforcing norms may be more robust. Jeffrey Checkel argues that there are two common types of explanations for the efficacy of norms: According to Peyton Young, mechanisms that support normative behavior include: Descriptive norms depict what happens, while injunctive norms describe what should happen. Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990) define

3045-422: A person to perform a behavior.When combined with attitude toward behavior, subjective norms shape an individual's intentions. Social influences are conceptualized in terms of the pressure that people perceive from important others to perform, or not to perform, a behavior. Social Psychologist Icek Azjen theorized that subjective norms are determined by the strength of a given normative belief and further weighted by

3150-416: A previous concept. One reason lurkers lurk is the need to learn more about the group. In interviews, lurkers claim a lack of understanding of the community as a reason for not posting. Lurkers often take the time before posting to evaluate the group for how well it is a fit for them. Lurkers learn more about the individuals in the group, the dialogue styles, and the implicit norms and explicit policies . In

3255-433: A role in the process of social norm development. Operant conditioning is the process by which behaviours are changed as a function of their consequences. The probability that a behaviour will occur can be increased or decreased depending on the consequences of said behaviour. In the case of social deviance, an individual who has gone against a norm will contact the negative contingencies associated with deviance, this may take

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3360-512: A small group of people. He argues that, in a small community or neighborhood, many rules and disputes can be settled without a central governing body simply by the interactions within these communities. In sociology, norms are seen as rules that bind an individual's actions to a specific sanction in one of two forms: a punishment or a reward. Through regulation of behavior, social norms create unique patterns that allow for distinguishing characteristics to be made between social systems. This creates

3465-699: A study of online communities in which it was possible to see the total membership list, researchers were able to count the number of members who were public participants in one community while remaining silent or non-public participants in another community. 84% of the members fit this mixed pattern, indicating that people choose whether to lurk or to contribute on a per-community basis. Lurking behavior provides some benefits to users. Mo and Coulson found that lurkers on an online support group for HIV/AIDS did not differ from posters in their levels of care, self-efficacy , optimism , depression , and loneliness . They also found that lurkers felt more energetic than posters. In

3570-601: A study that addressed lurking in E-learning , scholars found evidence that lurking is a helpful type of participation in online courses. Students said that the most common reasons they lurked before posting were to discover a message to reply to, to identify a model to adopt, to bypass providing a similar reply, and to acquire knowledge regarding the topic. Students in this study also expressed that they came back to read posts on online course discussion boards in order to check whether others had responded to their posts or to review

3675-692: A theoretical currency for understanding variations in group behavioral expectations. A teacher , for example, may more easily forgive a straight-A student for misbehaving —who has past "good credit" saved up—than a repeatedly disruptive student. While past performance can help build idiosyncrasy credits, some group members have a higher balance to start with. Individuals can import idiosyncrasy credits from another group; childhood movie stars , for example, who enroll in college, may experience more leeway in adopting school norms than other incoming freshmen. Finally, leaders or individuals in other high-status positions may begin with more credits and appear to be "above

3780-482: A variety of fields study phenomena that can be described under the umbrella term of computer-mediated communication (CMC) (see also Internet studies ). For example, many take a sociopsychological approach to CMC by examining how humans use "computers" (or digital media ) to manage interpersonal interaction, form impressions and maintain relationships. These studies have often focused on the differences between online and offline interactions, though contemporary research

3885-717: A variety of ways. Some stable and self-reinforcing norms may emerge spontaneously without conscious human design. Peyton Young goes as far as to say that "norms typically evolve without top-down direction... through interactions of individuals rather than by design." Norms may develop informally, emerging gradually as a result of repeated use of discretionary stimuli to control behavior. Not necessarily laws set in writing, informal norms represent generally accepted and widely sanctioned routines that people follow in everyday life. These informal norms, if broken, may not invite formal legal punishments or sanctions, but instead encourage reprimands, warnings, or othering ; incest , for example,

3990-439: A visible difference and if they expect the other members to provide enough content to reach the desired effect. A lurker may withhold information because when they contribute, it benefits everyone in the community except for themselves. When everyone then chooses to withhold information, the collective benefit is no longer produced. With more people free-riding, it is more difficult to produce useful information and interactions among

4095-470: Is "...an extent to which a person has a reading-based knowledge about a virtual community's culture and other participants, thus having much in common with them." By analyzing the Open University of Israel online forums and two IBM ReachOut online communities, Soroka and Rafaeli found that as users' cultural capital of an online community increases, their amount of activity increases, and they have

4200-452: Is a good tool for studying the number of lurkers in a community. It is easy to compare the number of lurkers between communities. Researchers can also collect information on the number of messages, the size of messages, the message content, and message threading. Questionnaires in contrast are better for asking the why and how of lurkers. There is less likely to be a response though because of the nature of lurkers and those that do respond may be

4305-526: Is a pool of data to which people may, if they choose, separately contribute information. The survival of the community is then dependent on the contributions of the members. Since it is impossible to exclude members from sharing in the benefit of the public good, people are more motivated to free-ride on the work of the other members and not contribute themselves. As a group grows in size, the likelihood of free-riding increases. Individuals are less likely to contribute if they do not view their contribution as making

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4410-948: Is a shared standard of acceptable behavior by a group. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws . Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour . Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances. Scholars distinguish between regulative norms (which constrain behavior), constitutive norms (which shape interests), and prescriptive norms (which prescribe what actors ought to do). The effects of norms can be determined by

4515-409: Is able to overcome physical and social limitations of other forms of communication and therefore allow the interaction of people who are not physically sharing the same space. Technology would be a powerful tool when defining communication as a learning process that needs a sender and receiver. According to Nicholas Jankowski in his book The Contours of Multimedia, a third party, like software, acts in

4620-597: Is agreement among scholars that norms are: In 1965, Jack P. Gibbs identified three basic normative dimensions that all concepts of norms could be subsumed under: According to Ronald Jepperson, Peter Katzenstein and Alexander Wendt , "norms are collective expectations about proper behavior for a given identity." Wayne Sandholtz argues against this definition, as he writes that shared expectations are an effect of norms, not an intrinsic quality of norms. Sandholtz, Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink define norms instead as "standards of appropriate behavior for actors with

4725-594: Is any verbal communication of personally relevant information, thought, and feeling which establishes and maintains interpersonal relationships. This is due in part to visual anonymity and the absence of nonverbal cues which reduce concern for losing positive face . According to Walther’s (1996) hyperpersonal communication model , computer-mediated communication is valuable in providing a better communication and better first impressions. Moreover, Ramirez and Zhang (2007) indicate that computer-mediated communication allows more closeness and attraction between two individuals than

4830-572: Is better to use when understanding de-lurking. Computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication ( CMC ) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats (e.g., instant messaging , email , chat rooms , online forums , social network services ), it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging . Research on CMC focuses largely on

4935-458: Is derived through experience (i.e. social norms are learned through social interaction ). Wearing a suit to a job interview in order to give a great first impression represents a common example of a social norm in the white collar work force . In his work "Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes", Robert Ellickson studies various interactions between members of neighbourhoods and communities to show how societal norms create order within

5040-496: Is estimated that at any point in time, 50% to 90% of the community may be lurkers. Depending on the community, this may be consistent with the 90-9-1 principle . Lurkers lurk rather than participate for a variety of reasons. A majority of lurkers profess that they lurk simply because they think that browsing is enough for them. Users also choose to lurk in order to find examples to follow when they decide to participate, avoid making redundant posts or contributions, and learn more about

5145-405: Is generally thought of as wrong in society, but many jurisdictions do not legally prohibit it. Norms may also be created and advanced through conscious human design by norm entrepreneurs . Norms can arise formally, where groups explicitly outline and implement behavioral expectations. Legal norms typically arise from design. A large number of these norms we follow 'naturally' such as driving on

5250-514: Is intrinsically synchronous but not persistent, since one loses all the content when one closes the dialog box unless one has a message log set up or has manually copy-pasted the conversation. E-mail and message boards, on the other hand, are low in synchronicity since response time varies, but high in persistence since messages sent and received are saved. Properties that separate CMC from other media also include transience, its multimodal nature, and its relative lack of governing codes of conduct. CMC

5355-610: Is lurking rather than participating, they may feel that they are being spied upon. Lurkers might also take pieces of content featured in communities without seeking consent, violating the rules of the community. As a result, while individuals in online communities may feel that they are experiencing private interactions, a lurker may see it as a public space for observation due to their reduced feelings of belonging. This can become quite extreme in more intimate communities such as chat rooms where lurkers are more obvious. Hudson and Bruckman entered IRC chatrooms as experimenters and either posted

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5460-441: Is moving towards the view that CMC should be studied as embedded in everyday life. Another branch of CMC research examines the use of paralinguistic features such as emoticons , pragmatic rules such as turn-taking and the sequential analysis and organization of talk, and the various sociolects , styles , registers or sets of terminology specific to these environments (see Leet ). The study of language in these contexts

5565-566: Is no actual victim in these consenting relationships. Social norms can be enforced formally (e.g., through sanctions) or informally (e.g., through body language and non-verbal communication cues). Because individuals often derive physical or psychological resources from group membership, groups are said to control discretionary stimuli ; groups can withhold or give out more resources in response to members' adherence to group norms, effectively controlling member behavior through rewards and operant conditioning. Social psychology research has found

5670-412: Is quickly withdrawn against the criminal. Crime is considered one of the most extreme forms of deviancy according to scholar Clifford R. Shaw . What is considered "normal" is relative to the location of the culture in which the social interaction is taking place. In psychology, an individual who routinely disobeys group norms runs the risk of turning into the " institutionalized deviant ." Similar to

5775-404: Is similar to asking questions without responding, or gathering information without distributing it. Lurking is seen as undesirable to communities because of the risk free-riding can have on the community if every member does it. A public good is something that is impossible to exclude someone from and has a joint supply within the community. An Internet community is seen as a public good because it

5880-421: Is the foundation of the terms some know as acceptable as not to injure others, the golden rule, and to keep promises that have been pledged. Without them, there would be a world without consensus, common ground, or restrictions. Even though the law and a state's legislation is not intended to control social norms, society and the law are inherently linked and one dictates the other. This is why it has been said that

5985-585: Is typically based on text-based forms of CMC, and is sometimes referred to as "computer-mediated discourse analysis". The way humans communicate in professional, social, and educational settings varies widely, depending upon not only the environment but also the method of communication in which the communication occurs, which in this case is through computers or other information and communication technologies ( ICTs ). The study of communication to achieve collaboration —common work products—is termed computer-supported collaboration and includes only some of

6090-465: The ethics of duty which in turn becomes a primary object of moral obligation . Guilt is followed by an action that is questioned after its doing. It can be described as something negative to the self as well as a negative state of feeling. Used in both instances, it is both an unpleasant feeling as well as a form of self-punishment . Using the metaphor of " dirty hands ", it is the staining or tainting of oneself and therefore having to self cleanse away

6195-495: The system operator who managed the BBS. Today, lurkers are viewed both positively and negatively. In many communities lurkers are still seen as free-riders. They are perceived as a drain on the public goods since they "take without giving back." However, some communities encourage newbies to lurk. By lurking, newbies can learn more about the culture of the community, understand the community's social norms , and become familiar with

6300-487: The answers to common problems, making them more likely to contribute answers later. If they have already had a question answered, they are even more likely to de-lurk and reciprocate. These behaviors form the backbone of open source technical support. Lurkers also help reduce the burden on communities. A person who may have a question for a community may be better served searching for the answer than forcing community members to expend effort to see and respond to their query. In

6405-514: The barriers to online participation. According to Rafaeli et al., "...community virtual social capital is 'a collection of features of the social network created as a result of virtual community activities that lead to development of common social norms and rules that assist cooperation for mutual benefit'" (p. 4). Through analyzing e-learning forums, Rafaeli et al. found a positive association between amounts of de-lurking and social capital. Soroka and Rafaeli claim that "virtual cultural capital"

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6510-439: The behaviors of the overarching society or culture may be transmitted and maintained within small subgroups of society. For example, Crandall (1988) noted that certain groups (e.g., cheerleading squads, dance troupes, sports teams, sororities) have a rate of bulimia , a publicly recognized life-threatening disease, that is much higher than society as a whole. Social norms have a way of maintaining order and organizing groups. In

6615-495: The case of open source project communities, the vast majority of questions have already been asked and answered in the community, making any repeated questions wasted work. Pragmatically, lurkers also provide revenue for communities as they access pages, generating advertising revenue. Lurkers experience less belonging in a community compared to regular contributors. They are less satisfied and experience more distractions. This means that lurkers are predisposed to leave before making

6720-408: The child is less likely to repeat the behaviour in future (punishment). Skinner also states that humans are conditioned from a very young age on how to behave and how to act with those around us considering the outside influences of the society and location one is in. Built to blend into the ambiance and attitude around us, deviance is a frowned upon action. Cialdini , Reno, and Kallgren developed

6825-526: The collective good. However, per relationalism, norms do not necessarily contribute to the collective good; norms may even be harmful to the collective. Some scholars have characterized norms as essentially unstable, thus creating possibilities for norm change. According to Wayne Sandholtz, actors are more likely to persuade others to modify existing norms if they possess power, can reference existing foundational meta-norms, and can reference precedents. Social closeness between actors has been characterized as

6930-459: The communication process. Unlike face-to-face communication, nonverbal cues such as tone and physical gestures, which assist in conveying the message, are lost through computer-mediated communication. As a result, the message being communicated is more vulnerable to being misunderstood due to a wrong interpretation of tone or word meaning. Moreover, according to Dr. Sobel-Lojeski of Stony Brook University and Professor Westwell of Flinders University,

7035-470: The concerns of other forms of CMC research. Popular forms of CMC include e-mail , video , audio or text chat (text conferencing including "instant messaging"), bulletin board systems , list-servs , and MMOs . These settings are changing rapidly with the development of new technologies. Weblogs (blogs) have also become popular, and the exchange of RSS data has better enabled users to each "become their own publisher". Communication occurring within

7140-582: The context and particular program being used or web page being visited. However, most researchers in the field acknowledge the importance of considering the psychological and social implications of these factors alongside the technical "limitations". CMC is widely discussed in language learning because CMC provides opportunities for language learners to practice their language. For example, Warschauer conducted several case studies on using email or discussion boards in different language classes. Warschauer claimed that information and communications technology “bridge

7245-534: The culture in which they live. As social beings, individuals learn when and where it is appropriate to say certain things, to use certain words, to discuss certain topics or wear certain clothes, and when it is not. Thus, knowledge about cultural norms is important for impressions , which is an individual's regulation of their nonverbal behavior. One also comes to know through experience what types of people he/she can and cannot discuss certain topics with or wear certain types of dress around. Typically, this knowledge

7350-547: The fact that the community is the only place to find a certain kind of content, while moderators and contributors are motivated by either duty or feelings of attachment. Lurking on social media can also be a form of receptive reading, whereby users seek to understand the opinions of those with a divergent points of view. In much of the published literature, "lurking" is treated as a personal trait. However, concepts of legitimate peripheral participation and "de-lurking" suggest that lurking may be more situational than dispositional. In

7455-464: The field of social psychology, the roles of norms are emphasized—which can guide behavior in a certain situation or environment as "mental representations of appropriate behavior". It has been shown that normative messages can promote pro-social behavior , including decreasing alcohol use, increasing voter turnout, and reducing energy use. According to the psychological definition of social norms' behavioral component, norms have two dimensions: how much

7560-404: The filth. It is a form of reparation that confronts oneself as well as submitting to the possibility of anger and punishment from others. Guilt is a point in both action and feeling that acts as a stimulus for further " honorable " actions. A 2023 study found that non-industrial societies varied in their punishments of norm violations. Punishment varied based on the types of norm violations and

7665-578: The focus theory of normative conduct to describe how individuals implicitly juggle multiple behavioral expectations at once. Expanding on conflicting prior beliefs about whether cultural, situational or personal norms motivate action, the researchers suggested the focus of an individual's attention will dictate what behavioral expectation they follow. There is no clear consensus on how the term norm should be used. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink distinguish between three types of norms: Finnemore, Sikkink, Jeffrey W. Legro and others have argued that

7770-506: The form of formal or informal rebuke, social isolation or censure, or more concrete punishments such as fines or imprisonment. If one reduces the deviant behavior after receiving a negative consequence, then they have learned via punishment. If they have engaged in a behavior consistent with a social norm after having an aversive stimulus reduced, then they have learned via negative reinforcement. Reinforcement increases behavior, while punishment decreases behavior. As an example of this, consider

7875-498: The forum)". In a series of studies investigating how newcomers learn the rules and habits of good users in four types of Usenet groups (i.e., health support, political issues, hobby, and technical groups), Burke, Kraut, and Joyce found correlational and experimental evidence that "group-oriented membership claims" or "de-lurking messages" were well received by previous community members. According to Burke et al., group-oriented membership claims are when new users introduce themselves to

7980-471: The ground and throw it out, a group member may pick up on the injunctive norm that he ought to not litter. Prescriptive norms are unwritten rules that are understood and followed by society and indicate what we should do. Expressing gratitude or writing a Thank You card when someone gives you a gift represents a prescriptive norm in American culture. Proscriptive norms, in contrast, comprise the other end of

8085-521: The group may begin meetings without him since the individual "is always late." The group generalizes the individual's disobedience and promptly dismisses it, thereby reducing the member's influence and footing in future group disagreements. Group tolerance for deviation varies across membership; not all group members receive the same treatment for norm violations. Individuals may build up a "reserve" of good behavior through conformity , which they can borrow against later. These idiosyncrasy credits provide

8190-454: The group members. The group will then not have enough resources to attract new members and retain current members. Lurking can also cost site holders money if they do not use advertising to generate revenue. The bandwidth costs of lurkers visiting a site may outstrip the value that donors or contributors provide to a community. Different factors in the community can influence the lurking behavior within that community. The amount of lurking within

8295-399: The group to define as a whole its take on the right action, usually with the integration of several members' schemas. Under the importation paradigm, norm formation occurs subtly and swiftly whereas with formal or informal development of norms may take longer. Groups internalize norms by accepting them as reasonable and proper standards for behavior within the group. Once firmly established,

8400-416: The group will give-up on them as a lost cause ; while the group may not necessarily revoke their membership, they may give them only superficial consideration . If a worker is late to a meeting, for example, violating the office norm of punctuality , a supervisor or other co-worker may wait for the individual to arrive and pull him aside later to ask what happened. If the behavior continues, eventually

8505-597: The historic divide between speech...and writing”. Thus, considerable concern has arisen over the reading and writing research in L2 due to the booming of the Internet. In the learning process, students, especially kids, need cognitive learning, but they also need social interaction, which enhances their psychological needs. Although technology has its powerful effect in assisting the English language learners to learn, it can not be

8610-487: The interviews, lurkers mentioned that this was their preferred method so that they could avoid making a mistake and being rejected by the group. To determine if the group is a good fit and to learn more about the norms, lurkers will read most if not all of the posts. By reading the posts, lurkers develop a better understanding about the topics being discussed and if this is a good fit for them. Lurkers will also examine email addresses and signatures with associated websites so get

8715-454: The key members of the community. Lurkers are also viewed positively in present-day communities because they provide an audience for the mass media. The presence of lurkers is often the justification for receiving advertising support . Lurkers are often hard to track in computer-mediated communities. Because they are not posting and mostly just read content, they leave behind few traces that can be tracked. In open source project communities, it

8820-440: The language used in some legislation is controlling and dictating for what should or should not be accepted. For example, the criminalization of familial sexual relations is said to protect those that are vulnerable, however even consenting adults cannot have sexual relationships with their relatives. The language surrounding these laws conveys the message that such acts are supposedly immoral and should be condemned, even though there

8925-439: The lurkers because they are not visible. By observing a lurker, the tools and methods by which they lurk can be understood. Ethnography is better for understanding a single community but not multiple communities. It again is good for understanding the reasons and activities of lurking. Content and discourse analysis is a good tool to understand the interactions within a community. Since many lurkers do not publicly interact, this tool

9030-417: The micro level. If the benefits do not outweigh the costs of the action for the actors, then a social norm would emerge. The norm's effectiveness is then determined by its ability to enforce its sanctions against those who would not contribute to the "optimal social order." Heinrich Popitz is convinced that the establishment of social norms, that make the future actions of alter foreseeable for ego, solves

9135-504: The mid-1980s, the word started to be applied to the Internet when bulletin board systems became popular. The bulletin boards were accessed through a single phone line that users would call to upload files and post comments to share with the community. It was expected that those using the system and consuming resources would contribute. Because lurkers would keep the phone line busy for extended periods of time without contributing anything, they were often viewed negatively and would be barred by

9240-508: The middle between a sender and receiver. The sender is interacting with this third party to send. The receiver interacts with it as well, creating an additional interaction with the medium itself along with the initially intended one between sender and receiver. The medium in which people choose to communicate influences the extent to which people disclose personal information. CMC is marked by higher levels of self-disclosure in conversation as opposed to face-to-face interactions. Self disclosure

9345-535: The more an individual values group-controlled resources or the more an individual sees group membership as central to his definition of self, the more likely he is to conform. Social norms also allow an individual to assess what behaviors the group deems important to its existence or survival, since they represent a codification of belief; groups generally do not punish members or create norms over actions which they care little about. Norms in every culture create conformity that allows for people to become socialized to

9450-469: The nature of the lurker, they can be hard to study. They do not leave visible traces and it is often difficult to address them directly. To study lurkers, often Internet communities such as email-based discussion lists, public forums, and community building tools will be targeted so communication can be tracked more easily. Methods of studying lurkers include logging, questionnaires, interviews, observation, ethnography, and content and discourse analysis. Logging

9555-435: The number of members in a group rises, the percentage of lurkers also rises. Within a given group size, the groups with higher traffic tend to have a lower percentage of lurkers. When lurkers decide to participate in the community, they "de-lurk," which Rafaeli, Ravid, and Soroka define as: "...transfer from passive participation (only visiting the forum to read) to active participation (actively posting opinions and thoughts on

9660-784: The online community by describing their undertakings in learning about the community; the authors provide the following example: "I've been lurking around your discussion group for a few weeks now. Just reading and trying to soak in some knowledge I guess". Correlational results in Study 1 showed that messages with group-oriented membership claims elevated community member responses by 38 percent, while experimental results in Study 2 showed that placing group-oriented membership claims into Usenet posts elevated community member responses by 6 percent. Some researchers have discovered positive links between social capital , cultural capital , and de-lurking. Others have identified psychological approaches to overcome

9765-505: The participant than when ratings were valuable to individuals who liked dissimilar movie genres as the participant. These authors also found that participants demonstrated a reduced likelihood of rating movies when ratings were valuable to oneself than when ratings were valuable to someone else. Given these findings, Rashid et al. claim, "…designers can use information about the beneficiaries of contributions to create subtle and integrated messages to increase motivation"(p. 958). Because of

9870-465: The problem of contingency ( Niklas Luhmann ). In this way, ego can count on those actions as if they would already have been performed and does not have to wait for their actual execution; social interaction is thus accelerated. Important factors in the standardization of behavior are sanctions and social roles. The probability of these behaviours occurring again is discussed in the theories of B. F. Skinner , who states that operant conditioning plays

9975-539: The right side of the road in the US and on the left side in the UK, or not speeding in order to avoid a ticket. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink identify three stages in the life cycle of a norm: They argue that several factors may raise the influence of certain norms: Christina Horne and Stefanie Mollborn have identified two broad categories of arguments for the emergence of norms: Per consequentialism, norms contribute to

10080-442: The robustness (or effectiveness) of norms can be measured by factors such as: Christina Horne argues that the robustness of a norm is shaped by the degree of support for the actors who sanction deviant behaviors; she refers to norms regulating how to enforce norms as "metanorms." According to Beth G. Simmons and Hyeran Jo, diversity of support for a norm can be a strong indicator of robustness. They add that institutionalization of

10185-400: The rules" at times. Even their idiosyncrasy credits are not bottomless, however; while held to a more lenient standard than the average member, leaders may still face group rejection if their disobedience becomes too extreme. Deviance also causes multiple emotions one experiences when going against a norm. One of those emotions widely attributed to deviance is guilt . Guilt is connected to

10290-498: The same location. Examples of synchronous communication are video chats and FaceTime audio calls. On the other hand, asynchronous computer-mediated communication refers to communication that takes place when the parties engaged are not communicating in unison. In other words, the sender does not receive an immediate response from the receiver. Most forms of computer-mediated technology are asynchronous. Examples of asynchronous communication are text messages and emails . Scholars from

10395-477: The same spectrum; they are similarly society's unwritten rules about what one should not do. These norms can vary between cultures; while kissing someone you just met on the cheek is an acceptable greeting in some European countries, this is not acceptable, and thus represents a proscriptive norm in the United States. Subjective norms are determined by beliefs about the extent to which important others want

10500-547: The significance of a social referent, as represented in the following equation: SN ∝ Σ n i m i , where (n) is a normative belief and (m) is the motivation to comply with said belief. Over the last few decades, several theorists have attempted to explain social norms from a more theoretical point of view. By quantifying behavioral expectations graphically or attempting to plot the logic behind adherence, theorists hoped to be able to predict whether or not individuals would conform. The return potential model and game theory provide

10605-469: The social effects of different computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based social networking supported by social software . Computer-mediated communication can be broken down into two forms: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous computer-mediated communication refers to communication that occurs in real-time. All parties are engaged in the communication simultaneously; however, they are not necessarily all in

10710-648: The socio-economic system of the society. The study "found evidence that reputational punishment was associated with egalitarianism and the absence of food storage ; material punishment was associated with the presence of food storage; physical punishment was moderately associated with greater dependence on hunting ; and execution punishment was moderately associated with social stratification ." Whereas ideas in general do not necessarily have behavioral implications, Martha Finnemore notes that "norms by definition concern behavior. One could say that they are collectively held ideas about behavior." Norms running counter to

10815-654: The sociological definition, institutionalized deviants may be judged by other group members for their failure to adhere to norms. At first, group members may increase pressure on a non-conformist, attempting to engage the individual in conversation or explicate why he or she should follow their behavioral expectations . The role in which one decides on whether or not to behave is largely determined on how their actions will affect others. Especially with new members who perhaps do not know any better, groups may use discretionary stimuli to bring an individual's behavior back into line. Over time, however, if members continue to disobey ,

10920-417: The topics of conversation. A lurker's need to learn about the community before contributing also explains why almost twice as many users lurk on technical support communities where more information is required to post as compared to health support communities . Researchers have shown that different motivations underlie reading, contributing, and moderating web forums. Pure lurkers more often are motivated by

11025-402: The virtual distance that is fundamental to computer-mediated communication can create a psychological and emotional sense of detachment, which can contribute to sentiments of societal isolation. Cybersex trafficking and other cyber crimes involve computer-mediated communication. Cybercriminals can carry out the crimes in any location where they have a computer or tablet with a webcam or

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