DOCSLIB.ORG

Social Networks and Online Communities – Managing User Acquisition, Activation and Retention

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Social Networks and Online Communities – Managing User Acquisition, Activation and Retention TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN Lehrstuhl für Dienstleistungs- und Technologiemarketing Social Networks and Online Communities – Managing User Acquisition, Activation and Retention Patrick Rohrmeier Vollständiger Abdruck der von der Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften der Technischen Universität München zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Dr. rer. pol.) genehmigten Dissertation. Vorsitzende: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Isabell M. Welpe Prüfer der Dissertation: 1. Univ.- Prof. Dr. Florian von Wangenheim 2. Prof. Dr. René Algesheimer, Universität Zürich / Schweiz Die Dissertation wurde am 27.12.2011 bei der Technischen Universität München eingereicht und durch die Fakultät für Wirtschaftswissenschaften am 02.05.2012 angenommen. I Summary Online social communities are among the most visited websites on the Internet. Although there has been enormous growth in the past years, these online venues operate in an increas- ingly saturated market with fierce competition. Community operators fight for active users, who interact and share content with other users. In order to ensure long-term success, com- munity operators need to keep a sufficient number of active users in their community. Thereby, community managers are concerned with three challenges: the acquisition of new users, the activation of their members (making them contribute more), and the retention of the existing users. Despite past research on online social communities and the broad interest in social influ- ence across different disciplines, surprisingly little is known about how the users’ social struc- tural context affects participation in online communities. Because users share relationships with each other and interact in the community, it is of specific interest to understand how these relationships and the position of the users in the overall online network influence their behavior. Therefore, the present dissertation provides an empirical investigation of the effects of the social context on the users’ perceptions, active participation behavior and loyalty to the online community. Because managing user acquisition, activation and retention is an impor- tant task for community managers, these different facets are examined in three empirical stud- ies. Study 1 investigates how users coming from different interpersonal acquisition channels differ in their attitudes towards the community and their behavior. Study 2 observes the effect of the users’ social structural context, attitudes and motivations on their active participation in the community. Study 3 is concerned with the effect of the user’s position and engagement in the online network on the decision to leave the online community. Study 1 demonstrates that users coming from different interpersonal acquisition channels differ in their attitudes and behavior. The study reveals that receivers of word-of-mouth show more favorable attitudes and behavior towards the online community than users acquired by firm-initiated personal selling activities. Word-of-mouth referred users can identify more with the community, provide more recommendations to other people to use the community and show higher participation behavior on the platform than those coming from personal selling. Moreover, a differentiation in online and offline word-of-mouth recommendations reveals that II offline-referred users are more beneficial for the online community than online-referred users. Offline-referred users are more satisfied with the community, provide more offline recom- mendations and participate more compared to users who received online referrals. The social relationship between the sender and the receiver of the marketing message is of particular relevance to understand these effects. Nevertheless, the study also shows that these channel differences are partly explained by the users’ different motives to use the community. Word- of-mouth referred users in general, and offline-referred users in particular, are more driven by social needs. This affects their attitudes and behavior towards the platform. This knowledge on interpersonal acquisition channels helps community operators to better understand what kinds of users are attracted and how to use different acquisition channels to build a balanced customer portfolio. Study 2 provides insights on the drivers of active user participation, which is described by the active contribution to the community and interaction with other users. Based on social capital theory, it is demonstrated that both structural and attitudinal factors influence user be- havior. The position of the user in the network, for example how central he is to other users, affects his active participation. Users with many contacts and users whose contacts do not share many relationships with each other participate more. In addition, meeting many of the online contacts in the offline world leads to less participation. Further, attitudinal factors yield additional insights, influencing participation in combination with objective network data. Here, satisfaction and identification with the community are found to be important drivers of active user behavior. Importantly, the study also shows that users with different motivations are affected differently in their participation. It is therefore critical to understand what types of users exist in the community and how they are motivated to use the platform. Overall, it is observed that the individuals’ network structures play an important role in explaining partici- pation behavior across different user groups. Study 3 investigates user retention. Because the online community market becomes more saturated, it is more important for community managers to retain their users to keep a critical mass using the community. This study demonstrates that the user’s network position, the con- figuration of the user’s network of contacts and the engagement of the user in the online community influence the likelihood of defection. The results show that users with a central position and a close network of friends stay longer in the community. In addition, a lower share of contacts who already left the platform and a lower number of contacts from the same III region and of the same gender lead to a higher likelihood that the focal user stays in the online social community. The users’ active participation and being a verified member also affect loyalty. These are important insights for community managers because they help to assess the user’s risk of leaving the community and take measures to keep them using the platform. In- terestingly, some of the effects decrease over time, which has important implications for community management and the timing of marketing actions. Overall, the present dissertation shows that the social context and the relationships to other users of the online network contribute to a better understanding of user behavior. The results suggest that community operators make use of structural and attitudinal data in order to build a strategic online community management. Based on this information, specific marketing measures should be developed to acquire, activate and retain users. First, users should be stimulated to provide word-of-mouth recommendations to other people. Nevertheless, com- munity managers should use different interpersonal acquisition channels to attract a balanced customer portfolio consisting of different types of users in order to reduce the risk of being dependent on just one user group. Second, community managers should use structural and at- titudinal data to personalize information for individual users on the platform and help them to integrate better in the online network. This data also helps to identify the most important users and evaluate the risk of leaving the community. Theoretically, this dissertation underlines the value of social relationships for user behav- ior. Social capital and related social concepts can help to better understand both structural and attitudinal aspects in online social communities. The different facets and dimensions of social relationships and social capital, which are investigated in the three empirical studies, are linked to develop an integrated understanding of how social capital and user behavior works in online social communities. IV Acknowledgements The work at hand was accepted as doctoral thesis by the Technische Universität München in spring 2012. It was a long journey until I held the final version of this dissertation in my hands. However, it was a challenging, enriching and fun time thanks to all my mentors, peers, colleagues and research partners. I had the pleasure to work together with skilled and helpful people, always good for advice and deep topical discussions. First, I would like to thank my PhD advisor, Prof. Florian von Wangenheim, for accepting me as a doctoral candidate at the chair for service and technology marketing. He continuously provided constructive support by challenging my ideas and opening up new ways to think about scientific issues. His timely feedback was valuable throughout all phases of the disserta- tion. Without his advice, the dissertation would not be what it is today. I also want to thank Prof. René Algesheimer, my second supervisor, for fruitful discussions and comments, his great expertise and support in bringing the empirical and theoretical work one step further. Our first meeting helped to shape the focus of my dissertation and his continuous feedback always helped to improve my thesis. Many thanks go to Prof. Isabell
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies 2 - Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies
    Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies 2 - Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies Modern complex societies increasingly expect leaders to hold advanced degrees in order to bring so- phisticated research-informed analysis to bear on pressing issues in the public, private and civil society sectors. The PhD in International Family and Community Studies is being offered in the Balkans since 2012. By bringing a first-rate American doctoral program directly to the region, we hope to mobilize knowledge so as to increase the regional capacity for addressing important social issues and to do so at a highly competitive price and with minimal risk of “brain drain”. www.clemson.edu - 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS • Welcome Address • Program Overview • Why a Doctoral Program in the Balkans? • Why Choose this Doctoral Program? • Who is offering this Doctoral Degree? • Description of the Program • Curriculum • Course Descriptions • Faculty & Staff • Principal Faculty of IFNL • Adjunct Faculty of IFNL • Staff of IFNL • Admission Criteria • Application for Admission • Degree Requirements and Potential Waiver of Courses for Master’s Degree Students • Cost of Studies • Quality Assurance 4 - Doctorate in International Family and Community Studies WELCOME ADDRESS “Understanding family and community life is an important first step in improving social conditions. Consider continuing your journey with a doctorate in international family and commu- nity studies. Because a doctorate
    [Show full text]
  • Download Download
    Proceedings of the Fifteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2021) A Large Open Dataset from the Parler Social Network Max Aliapoulios1, Emmi Bevensee2, Jeremy Blackburn3, Barry Bradlyn4, Emiliano De Cristofaro5, Gianluca Stringhini6, Savvas Zannettou7 1New York University, 2SMAT, 3Binghamton University, 4University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 5University College London, 6Boston University, 7Max Planck Institute for Informatics [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract feasible in technical terms to create a new social media plat- Parler is as an “alternative” social network promoting itself form, but marketing the platform towards specific polarized as a service that allows to “speak freely and express yourself communities is an extremely successful strategy to bootstrap openly, without fear of being deplatformed for your views.” a user base. In other words, there is a subset of users on Twit- Because of this promise, the platform become popular among ter, Facebook, Reddit, etc., that will happily migrate to a new users who were suspended on mainstream social networks platform, especially if it advertises moderation policies that for violating their terms of service, as well as those fearing do not restrict the growth and spread of political polariza- censorship. In particular, the service was endorsed by several tion, conspiracy theories, extremist ideology, hateful and vi- conservative public figures, encouraging people to migrate olent speech, and mis- and dis-information. from traditional social networks. After the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Parler has been progressively de- Parler.
    [Show full text]
  • Effectiveness of Dismantling Strategies on Moderated Vs. Unmoderated
    www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Efectiveness of dismantling strategies on moderated vs. unmoderated online social platforms Oriol Artime1*, Valeria d’Andrea1, Riccardo Gallotti1, Pier Luigi Sacco2,3,4 & Manlio De Domenico 1 Online social networks are the perfect test bed to better understand large-scale human behavior in interacting contexts. Although they are broadly used and studied, little is known about how their terms of service and posting rules afect the way users interact and information spreads. Acknowledging the relation between network connectivity and functionality, we compare the robustness of two diferent online social platforms, Twitter and Gab, with respect to banning, or dismantling, strategies based on the recursive censor of users characterized by social prominence (degree) or intensity of infammatory content (sentiment). We fnd that the moderated (Twitter) vs. unmoderated (Gab) character of the network is not a discriminating factor for intervention efectiveness. We fnd, however, that more complex strategies based upon the combination of topological and content features may be efective for network dismantling. Our results provide useful indications to design better strategies for countervailing the production and dissemination of anti- social content in online social platforms. Online social networks provide a rich laboratory for the analysis of large-scale social interaction and of their social efects1–4. Tey facilitate the inclusive engagement of new actors by removing most barriers to participate in content-sharing platforms characteristic of the pre-digital era5. For this reason, they can be regarded as a social arena for public debate and opinion formation, with potentially positive efects on individual and collective empowerment6.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Online Communities
    An Introduction to Online Communities by Helen Baxter Community Manager KnowledgeBoard.com Sift, 100 Victoria Street, Bristol, BS1 6HZ, 0117 915 9600, www.sift.co.uk For more details contact Richard Dennys, [email protected] Introduction by Helen Baxter I have been involved in online communities since 1994, first as a member, then community producer, and am now Community Manager of Knowledgeboard.com, the portal for the EC's Knowledge Management Forum. I have made many great friends over the years through online communities and even 'met' my husband online. I think that the increasing success of online communities stems from the fact that they harness the way that people naturally use the Internet. It is the innate human nature to communicate and build relationships that has driven the development of the Internet as we see it today. Ever since the network was opened up to the academic establishment in the 1970s, 'online' or 'virtual' communities have formed. In real life most communities are formed through geographical proximity, but online communities are mostly formed around a shared interest or need, and are a powerful tool for building trust and relationships, word of mouth marketing, and knowledge acquisition and exchange. This 'Introduction to Online Communities' has been written to give an overview of the different types of online community, what makes an online community, and the various community tools. Every community is unique and it is difficult to give a guaranteed recipe for success, but I will cover common factors found in every good online community. It is also worth remembering that as in real life communities take time to grow, and will continually evolve.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Social Science
    Philosophy of Social Science Philosophy of Social Science A New Introduction Edited by Nancy Cartwright and Eleonora Montuschi 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © The several contributors 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2014938929 ISBN 978–0–19–964509–1 (hbk.) ISBN 978–0–19–964510–7 (pbk.) Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropology Comes Part-Way Home: Community Studies In
    Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 1977. 6:349-78 Copyright @ 1977 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved ANTHROPOLOGY COMES +9598 PART-WAY HOME: COMMUNITY STUDIES IN EUROPE John W. Cole Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003 INTRODUCTION Robert Redfield's research in the Mexican village of Tepoztlan in the late 1920s marks the expansion of field research in social anthropology into complex societies. Certainly in the decades which fo llowed this work there was a proliferation of research among peasants, pastoralists and fishermen, Anthropologists conducted field work not only in Latin America, but in the civilizations of Asia and Africa as well. In this general expansion, a few studies were conducted in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s, notably by Arensberg in Western Ireland (5, 6), by Chapman in Sicily (30), and by Sanders (97) in the Balkans. But the cultures of contemporary Europe held little interest fo r the profession at large.! As a number of writers have noted, little social anthropological research was carried out in Europe until the 1950s (2, pp. 2-3; 5, pp. 9- 13; 56, p. 743). This was certainly not because of a lack of familiarity with the continent. The by University of British Columbia on 12/11/10. For personal use only. study of historical sources on the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean and on the Celtic and Germanic "tribes" of antiquity played a prominent role in the Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1977.6:349-378. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org fo rmation of nineteenth century anthropological ideas. As John Davis (38, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Theatrekids on Tiktok Conference Paper
    #Theatrekids: Finding community through the TikTok platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. By Madison Burkett Abstract: The international arts and theatre communities have suffered greatly due to the continued shutdown of the industry as response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the way that these offline communities have found a home on the social media platform TikTok. TikTok offers a unique set of affordances which allow globally dispersed users to form common interested based communities, which includes existing social media features such as friending and hashtag and distinctive functions such as duet and stitch. Through the examples of the stage management TikTok communities who use the identifying hashtags of #stagemanagers and #stagemanagersoftiktok, and the collaborative musical creations of Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical and Bridgerton the Musical, this paper will explore the way that #theatrekids are using this platform to replace their physical theatre communities with an online theatre community in a time of social distancing, unemployment and lockdown. Keywords: TikTok, social media, online communities, music theatre, #theatrekid, #stagemanager, #stagemangersoftiktok, #RatatouilleMusical, #bridgertonthemusical Paper: On the 12th of March 2020, Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York, announced that Broadway theatres would be shutting down in response to the growing number of COVID-19 cases in the state (Benbrook, 2021). This announcement was quickly followed by the shuttering of theatres across the world, including the West End and throughout Australia. Twelve months later, while the Australian industry is slowly beginning to recover (Galvin & Muller, 2021), the majority of international theatres are still closed with many individuals waiting to return to work (Thomas, 2021).
    [Show full text]
  • Social Media for Social Good
    Social Media for Social Good By Ayelet Baron, Director, Cisco Systems, Inc. [email protected] June 2009 Contents: . Introduc-on . Execuve Summary and Point of View . Social Media Tools . Social Media Planning . Examples . What’s Next? . Sources Appendix A: 51 Social Media Sites Every Business Needs To Be Seen On B: Recommended Books C: Recommended Online Resources D: Social Media Monitoring Tools E: Directory of Tools on TAG 2 Background One of the key deliverables of my Cisco Leadership Fellowship1 was to provide an overview of how nonprofits can use social media. As I write this, I know that there is someone out there creang a new tool that will be out in beta soon that no one has heard of YET that may be the next big trend. While this paper provides an overview of some of the exisAng social media tools that are currently being adopted, what I would like to leave you with is the noAon that the tools will most definitely change but people and human behavior is what we need to focus on when it comes to social media. The guiding principle is that people drive change; not technology. The goal for social media for most nonprofit organizaons is to create conversaons with key stakeholders and for some, it is an opportunity to drive social innovaon. Technology is merely the enabler and the challenge is to ensure building the right processes in an ongoing fashion. Trust and relaonships are fundamental building blocks. The key to social media is focusing on the people that your organizaon wants to connect with and using the tools to build those relaonships.
    [Show full text]
  • Social Networking: a Guide to Strengthening Civil Society Through Social Media
    Social Networking: A Guide to Strengthening Civil Society Through Social Media DISCLAIMER: The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. Counterpart International would like to acknowledge and thank all who were involved in the creation of Social Networking: A Guide to Strengthening Civil Society through Social Media. This guide is a result of collaboration and input from a great team and group of advisors. Our deepest appreciation to Tina Yesayan, primary author of the guide; and Kulsoom Rizvi, who created a dynamic visual layout. Alex Sardar and Ray Short provided guidance and sound technical expertise, for which we’re grateful. The Civil Society and Media Team at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was the ideal partner in the process of co-creating this guide, which benefited immensely from that team’s insights and thoughtful contributions. The case studies in the annexes of this guide speak to the capacity and vision of the featured civil society organizations and their leaders, whose work and commitment is inspiring. This guide was produced with funding under the Global Civil Society Leader with Associates Award, a Cooperative Agreement funded by USAID for the implementation of civil society, media development and program design and learning activities around the world. Counterpart International’s mission is to partner with local organizations - formal and informal - to build inclusive, sustainable communities in which their people thrive. We hope this manual will be an essential tool for civil society organizations to more effectively and purposefully pursue their missions in service of their communities.
    [Show full text]
  • How Identities Formed in Online Fan Communities Affect Real Life Identities Aimee Ratka Honors College, Pace University
    Pace University DigitalCommons@Pace Honors College Theses Pforzheimer Honors College Summer 7-2018 Exploring Identities in Online Music Fandoms: How identities Formed in Online Fan Communities Affect Real Life Identities Aimee Ratka Honors College, Pace University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses Part of the Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Mass Communication Commons, and the Social Media Commons Recommended Citation Ratka, Aimee, "Exploring Identities in Online Music Fandoms: How identities Formed in Online Fan Communities Affect Real Life Identities" (2018). Honors College Theses. 174. https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses/174 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Pforzheimer Honors College at DigitalCommons@Pace. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College Theses by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Pace. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXPLORING IDENTITIES IN ONLINE MUSIC FANDOMS 1 Exploring Identities in Online Music Fandoms: How Identities Formed in Online Fan Communities Affect Real Life Identities Aimee Ratka Communications Studies Major, Marketing Minor Advisor: Dr. Aditi Paul Dyson College of Arts & Sciences Presentation Date: May 7, 2018 Graduation Date: May 22, 2018 EXPLORING IDENTITIES IN ONLINE MUSIC FANDOMS 2 Abstract This thesis set out to explore the identities formed by members of online fandom communities, and to determine the ways in which those identities affect their real life, offline identities. This qualitative study encountered elements related to stereotypes of young women who are fans of mainstream pop music, and provided insight on their experiences through interviews with five long time boy band online fandom members.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Background
    MM01_MORI5627_05_SE_C01.indd01_MORI5627_05_SE_C01.indd PagePage 1 30/05/1330/05/13 //203/PH01348/9780205255627_MORITSUGU/MORITSUGU_COMMUNITY_PSYCHOLOGY5_SE_9780205 27:0070:030/P AMAHM01 user-f-401u3s4e8r/-9f-7480012 05255627_MORITSUGU/MORITSUGU_COMMUNITY_PSYCHOLOGY5_SE_978020525 ... 1 Introduction: Historical Background HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ▪ CASE IN POINT 1.2 Does Primary Social Movements Prevention Work? Swampscott Social Justice WHAT IS COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY? Emphasis on Strengths and Competencies Social Change and Action Research FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES Interdisciplinary Perspectives A Respect for Diversity ▪ CASE IN POINT 1.3 Social Psychology, The Importance of Context and Environment Community Psychology, and Homelessness Empowerment ▪ CASE IN POINT 1.4 The Importance The Ecological Perspective/Multiple Levels of of Place Intervention ▪ A Psychological Sense of Community CASE IN POINT 1.1 Clinical Psychology, Training in Community Psychology Community Psychology: What’s the Difference? PLAN OF THE TEXT OTHER CENTRAL CONCEPTS Prevention Rather Than Therapy SUMMARY Until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. —Martin Luther King, quoting Amos 5:24 Be the change that you wish to see in the world. —M. Gandhi 1 MM01_MORI5627_05_SE_C01.indd01_MORI5627_05_SE_C01.indd PagePage 2 30/05/1330/05/13 //203/PH01348/9780205255627_MORITSUGU/MORITSUGU_COMMUNITY_PSYCHOLOGY5_SE_9780205 27:0070:030/P AMAHM01 user-f-401u3s4e8r/-9f-7480012 05255627_MORITSUGU/MORITSUGU_COMMUNITY_PSYCHOLOGY5_SE_978020525 ... 2 Part I • Introductory Concepts My dog Zeke is a big, friendly Lab–golden retriever–Malamute mix. Weighing in at a little over 100 pounds, he can be intimidating when you first see him. Those who come to know him find a puppy-like enthusi- asm and an eagerness to please those he knows. One day, Zeke got out of the backyard. He scared off the mail delivery person and roamed the streets around our home for an afternoon.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Role of Community in Online Dating Christina Masden and W
    Understanding the Role of Community in Online Dating Christina Masden and W. Keith Edwards GVU Center and School of Interactive Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA USA {christinamasden, keith}@cc.gatech.edu 2013, the online dating industry generated around $2 billion ABSTRACT USD in revenue [36]. Online dating sites have become a common means of finding a romantic partner. And yet, these sites differ Part of the appeal of these sites is that, divorced from face- greatly from many other socially oriented websites: perhaps to-face indicators of attraction, both parties are free to most notably, the pairwise style of interaction afforded by present themselves in an idealized manner. Online dating these sites prevents a robust online community from offers a way to find potential partners you wouldn’t forming. Users, however, have taken matters into their own ordinarily meet, freer of context than in real life. Further, hands by creating thriving external forums for discussion of the online interaction is always between two individuals. In specific dating sites. We report on a multiple methods study other words, while profiles are viewable by many, messages of two online dating services, via observation and or chats are only sent from one person to another, and are interviews with users of the forums associated with these not viewable by any other members of the site. This affords sites. Our findings suggest that these forums play an a privacy not easily experienced in real world contexts, essential role in creating an “outsourced community” for where friends, family, acquaintances, and even strangers in the dating sites, and also reveal practices around how some public are often privy to the details of romantic encounters, users “game the system” in online dating, the prevalence of whether firsthand or through the grapevine.
    [Show full text]