Online social question-and-answer (Q&A) communities provide a platform for people to acquire high-quality knowledge and have become an important mode through which users can cocreate value. We ...applied self-determination theory and the stimulus-organism-response framework to develop a model of how platform characteristics influence users' self-determination in virtual communities, thereby influencing their value cocreation behavior. Data obtained froma surveyof 385 usersinanonline social Q&A community show that personalized recommendations, social interaction, and information richness each had a positive impact on user selfcompetence, self-autonomy, and self-relatedness, which subsequently affectedtheirknowledge-sharingandknowledge-integrationbehaviors. Moreover, self-determination had a mediating effect in the relationship between platform characteristics and users' knowledge-sharing and knowledge-integration behaviors. Our findings provide evidence for how to promote value cocreation in a social Q&A community. Keywords value cocreation; online social question-and-answer community; Internet platform characteristics; online communities; user selfdetermination; knowledge sharing; knowledge integration
Applying the communication mediation model and the communication infrastructure theory in the Korean news media environment, the current study investigates the potential of news portals as a gateway ...to civic engagement through online discussion. Specifically, this study distinguishes the active use of news portals for information about community issues and public affairs (e.g. commenting, passing along and searching for information) from the passive use of news portals (i.e. simple reception of information). An analysis of a national survey of 1294 Korean adults shows that active, not passive, use of news portals positively predicts online community discussion to subsequently increase cognitive, psychological, and behavioral dimensions of civic engagement: neighborhood belonging, collective efficacy, and civic participation. Importantly, active portal use's indirect positive relationship with civic engagement through online community discussion is stronger among people with higher news portal credibility. Implications are further discussed in the context of Korean news portals.
The post-partum consumption of the placenta by the mother (placentophagy) has been practiced since the 1970s in the global North and is seemingly increasing in popularity. Maternal placentophagy is ...not known to have been practiced in any other time period or culture, despite being near-ubiquitous in other placental mammals. An in-depth qualitative exploration as to the reasons for the practice, its increasing popularity and how it is narratively incorporated into discourses surrounding "ideal" natural and medical births are given in this paper.
1752 posts from 956 users across 85 threads from the parenting forums Mumsnet and Netmums were identified for inclusion. A thematic discourse analysis was performed using NVivo.
Three main themes were identified: women recounted predominantly positive attitudes towards their own experiences of placentophagy, and they were respectful of others' views and experiences; some had negative views, particularly around the concept of disgust, but again, they were respectful of others' experiences. By far the most common method of consumption of the placenta was encapsulation.
This paper identifies the motivation for placentophagy to almost universally be for medical benefits, most commonly the prevention or treatment of post-natal depression (PND). Whilst disgust is a common reaction, discussion of risks is rare, and positive experiences outweigh negative ones. The increasing popularity of the practice is ascribed in part to the comparative palatability of encapsulation and the use of the internet to share resources and remove barriers. Parenting forums are important spaces to negotiate normative birth practices, including placentophagy, and act to build communities of women who value personal experience over medical evidence and highly value personal choice and bodily autonomy. Placentophagy is discussed in terms of its relation to natural and medical births with arguments being made using both discourses for and against the practice. This paper argues that placentophagy is practiced as a resistance to medicalisation as an assertion of control by the mother, whilst simultaneously being a medicalised phenomenon itself.
This book incorporates nine expanded case studies to explore the challenges and dilemmas of inspiring, improving and student participation in online discussion. Explores innovative approaches such as ...student/peer facilitation and audio discussion.
Online knowledge-based peer-production communities, like question and answer sites (Q&A), often rely on gamification, e.g., through reputation points, to incentivize users to contribute frequently ...and effectively. These gamification techniques are important for achieving the critical mass that sustains a community and enticing new users to join. However, aging communities tend to build “poverty traps” that act as barriers for new users. In this paper, we present our investigation of 32 domain communities from Stack Exchange and our analysis of how different subjects impact the development of early user advantage. Our results raise important questions about the accessibility of knowledge-based peer-production communities. We consider the analysis results in the context of changing information needs and the relevance of Q&A in the future. Our findings inform policy design for building more equitable knowledge-based peer-production communities and increasing the accessibility to existing ones.
Online learning has been burgeoning over the past decade with one of the more popular modes of conducting online learning being the asynchronous online courses. Within the asynchronous online course, ...the asynchronous discussion forum replaces the face-to-face interaction of the traditional classroom, but is this form of discussion able to enhance the learning process? This paper reviews the literature regarding asynchronous discussion forums finding that that the asynchronous discussion forum is able to generate the critical dimensions of learning found in the traditional classroom, but it has its limitations.
Help seeking is regarded as an important learning strategy that reflects students' metacognitive and domain-specific skills and knowledge. This study developed a proactive online discussion forum ...that strengthens social networks in an online discussion forum to facilitate help seeking for problem solving. This forum allowed students to proactively invite friends or potential experts to participate in problem solving. A quasi-experimental approach was conducted with a sample of 37 students. The students' behaviors of problem solving, ego network patterns of problem solving, and perceptions of help seeking were addressed as dependent variables to assess the effect of the proactive online discussion forum. The analysis results revealed that the students in the experimental group exhibited more frequent participation in problem solving, and showed more positive attitudes towards help seeking. The results also indicated that the experimental group demonstrated more in-depth participation patterns of ego networks. The findings provide some evidence for the effectiveness of the proactive online discussion forum in terms of promoting students' participation in problem solving and their attitudes towards help seeking.
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