Abstract In creativity research, an important unresolved issue relates to identifying the kind of information an individual should be exposed to in order to be highly creative. We aimed to gain ...insights into this issue; we collected and statistically analyzed three datasets related to three large online communities (namely Cities: Skylines, SCP-wiki, and Archive of Our Own) engaged in mod development and novel writing to examine whether the quality and diversity of other people’s products referred to have a positive effect on product generation. Our analysis revealed the following three findings: (1) the quality diversity of reference products generated by others has the most positive impact on the quality of generated products when it is neither high nor low, (2) the content diversity of reference products generated by others has a negative impact on the quality of generated products, and (3) the quality of reference products generated by others has a negative impact on the quality of generated products when it is extremely high. We conclude by discussing the implications of the findings for creativity research.
Virtual communities: A marketing perspective de Valck, Kristine; van Bruggen, Gerrit H.; Wierenga, Berend
Decision Support Systems,
06/2009, Letnik:
47, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Increasingly, consumers interact through the Internet to share their knowledge, experiences, and opinions. Consequently, ‘word-of-mouse’ has become a significant market force that influences consumer ...decision-making. On the basis of extensive quantitative and qualitative research, the authors sketch how consumers make use of virtual communities as social and information networks, and how this affects their decision-making processes. We present three studies that address (i) determinants and effects of virtual community influence on the consumer decision process; (ii) virtual community participation patterns; and (iii) discussion practices of the most active community members. Key implications for managers, marketers, and market researchers are discussed.
Sudden influxes of new contributors to online communities can cause apprehension and resentment among existing members, potentially leading to the displacement of existing members by newcomers. We ...analyze the impact of a sudden influx of new contributors to r/TwoXChromosomes, an online community in which the experiences and perspectives of female-identified individuals are discussed. Though we find evidence of a small displacement effect, other factors, such as the passage of time and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, have far larger impacts on the retention of existing contributors. We also find that after the influx, discussion topics shifted temporarily toward general statements about women and men, followed by a lasting shift away from appearance-related topics toward topics relating to motherhood. In sum, the evidence suggests that in this particular case, fears of displacement by a sudden influx of newcomers are exaggerated, and that technology designers, users, and online community managers should consider the impact of a wider variety of factors when considering how to maintain cohesive online communities.
•This paper reviews the online learning literature to address the attrition issue and increase the learning outcomes.•The review is classified into three categories, technology adoption, continuation ...of technology use, and learning outcomes.•Antecedents of adoption, continuance, and learning outcome are classified according to social cognitive theory framework.•Integration of virtual communities to online learning platforms is proposed for better outcome and engagement.•Future directions are discussed to enrich the online learning experience.
The use of Technology to facilitate better learning and training is gaining momentum worldwide, reducing the temporal and spatial problems associated with traditional learning. Despite its several benefits, retaining students in online platforms is challenging. Through a literature review of the factors affecting adoption, the continuation of technology use, and learning outcomes, this paper discusses an integration of online learning with virtual communities to foster student engagement for obtaining better learning outcomes. Future directions have been discussed, the feedback mechanism which is an antecedent of students’ continuation intention has a lot of scopes to be studied in the virtual community context. The use of Apps in m-learning and the use of cloud services can boost the ease and access of online learning to users and organizations.
We discuss the importance of salient design features (which support purposeful action and relate to functional affordances) of customer-to-customer social media platforms that support communities of ...interest, focussed on open-ended data and user tasks, in contrast to business-to-customer platforms, focussed on relatively fixed data and transactions. We provide an exposition of their design features, shedding light on how they support tasks of searching and decision-making in which users elicit knowledge from their community, for targeted needs to needs which are less known and speculative. We also discuss that how our findings can be useful for designing social media platforms that support other types of online communities such as online communities of practice. Our research contributes to the ongoing discourse in the information systems field about the importance of identifying and articulating the salient design features of an information technology that is useful for theory and practice.
Virtual community is a valuable business medium for web vendors in terms of disseminating information and retaining customers. This research investigates the underlying driving forces that cultivate ...both the trust and returning behavior of virtual community members. In particular, this research examines the influence of shared values, satisfaction with previous interactions, and website privacy policies on the trust of 381 active virtual community members. The findings suggest that the shared values of virtual community members have a positive impact on both trust and relationship commitment. Second, satisfaction with previous interactions not only increases the level of trust in virtual community members, but also enhances relationship commitment and member stickiness. Third, website privacy policies enhance the level of trust significantly. Finally, trust shows a positive and significant effect on both the stickiness and the commitment of virtual community members.
Online anonymous forums are valued as spaces of open participation which facilitate multiple expressions of identity. In this paper I unmask how memes perpetuate existing gender power structures in ...spaces where users are only known by pseudonyms. The site of study is the r/AdviceAnimals forum of Reddit, in which a popular genre of memes known as Advice Animals are shared by users. Using a cross-section of Advice Animal memes submitted to this forum, the study examines the uneven distribution of power in representations of gender and feminists. I find that while women are highly sexualised, obsessive, and clingy, male characters are a default central character, used to express non-specific ideals of behaviour. As feminists, men are portrayed as legitimate, whilst women-feminists are epitomised as hypocritical, demanding, “Nazis”. The main contribution of the article is highlighting the gendered nature of memes, and call attention to the unequal representation in pseudonymous space.
The present study aimed to examine the influence of facilitating conditions on the effectiveness of a Virtual Community of Practice. To do so, we first analysed the influence of facilitating ...conditions on the effectiveness of a Virtual Community of Practice. Second, we examined the mediating role of a sense of virtual community between facilitating conditions and effectiveness. Finally, we tested the moderating role of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in this relationship. The sample was composed of 110 employees of an NGO who used an intranet platform to create, share, store, and use knowledge about their practice. Results showed that facilitating conditions had a positive influence on effectiveness, and that a sense of virtual community partially mediated this relationship. We also found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use moderated the effects of facilitating conditions on effectiveness through a sense of virtual community. The manuscript concludes with theoretical and practical implications of the study.
ASMR has skyrocketed to international popularity in recent years, and a thriving community and cultural exists around the phenomenon on YouTube. However, misunderstandings about the practice persist, ...and little is known about this community in terms of its texts and practices. This research draws on a multiyear digital ethnography into the ASMR culture and community on YouTube, where I analyze how microcelebrity, the attention economy, platform-specific dynamics, and content creation merge. Drawing on extant research that identifies reciprocity as a key cultural dynamic on YouTube, I argue reciprocity in the ASMR YouTube community, as well as the relationship between creator and viewer, can best be understood as transactional tingles: relaxation in exchange for likes, clicks, and views within the attention economy. Transactional tingles is also a contemporary blending of more traditional art patronage and dealer-critic systems, which offers insights into the role viewers and platforms play in content creation, digital labor, and precarity.
Virtual communities (VCs) represent popular social environments in which people interact by exchanging resources such as information, ideas, and advice about their common interests. Existing research ...lacks an explication of why people help others in VCs and how such voluntary behaviors drive subsequent attitudes (VC commitment) and behavioral intentions (online co-shopping). This article adopts resource exchange theory to examine how two routes of interactivity (structural vs. experiential) influence reciprocity and affect commitment and co-shopping. Using a netnography study and an online survey, the authors confirm the significant effects of structural and experiential routes of interactivity on reciprocity. Reciprocity has critical effects on social system maintenance by enhancing commitment to the community and intention to co-shop. The results also identify partially mediated relationships among various variables, which suggest that the effects of the experiential route on VC commitment and co-shopping operate partly through reciprocity.
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