Simulation of user participation and interaction in online discussion groups

Authors:
Else Nygren
Affiliations:
Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala university, Sweden
Venue:
MSM'11 Proceedings of the 2011 international conference on Modeling and Mining Ubiquitous Social Media
Year:
2011

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Abstract

Online discussion groups (Internet forums) are difficult to analyze with normal social network analysis because there are no data that can be used to represent edges between nodes. In this study we use citations and mentions of names of other group members as a proxy for a directed social interaction between the nodes. We call these markers of social interactions grooms. This method: grooming analysis makes it possible to analyze and define a network based on the social interaction in the group. Our previous studies indicated that the tendency to make posts in the group was affected by how much grooming a group member had received from others. To test this assumption, we created various simulation models as thinking tools for understanding the mechanisms behind social structuring in discussion groups. Models were tested against observed data, with and without the concept of grooming. We found that the concept of grooming was useful to understand the mechanisms behind the activity in the group. The concept of social grooming - actions which invoke another participant's name, proved to be highly predictive of subsequent activity and interaction.