Sunbelt XXXI International Network for Social Network ... - INSNA

The Role Of Offline Status In An Online World: At The Intersection Of Two Related Communities Of PracticeDennen, Vanessa P.Online Social NetworksOn‐line Communities, Academic Networks, Blog Networks, Communities Of PracticeTHURS.AM1When people meet in different settings, do they replicate the same social structures and hierarchies? Or do online, pseudonymous networks allow for thepossibility to break out of traditional face‐to‐face structures, even when individuals self‐identify with the same titles and characteristics? This paper examinesthe interplay or overlap of membership in two topically related communities of practice – one in a face‐to‐face work setting and the other existing via ablogging network. The people in question are academics or academics‐in‐training who are active bloggers in a journalistic vein (e.g. they write about the dailyhappenings in their professional and often also their personal lives). Through their blogging network, which primarily consists of sole‐authored blogs writtenunder pseudonym, they share personal stories (on their own blogs) and offer advice and support to their fellow bloggers (via comments). Data for this studywere collected via interviews, surveys, and a review of blog and comment archives. Network analysis techniques are used to demonstrate how the social andpower structures of the online network are similar to but do not quite replicate the social and power structures of the offline world. Discourse analysistechniques are then used to help explicate the reasons for these differences. Wenger’s (1998) Community of Practice theory, with its presentation of fivecommunity trajectories, serves as a theoretical framework for classifying an individual’s status as both an academic and as a blogger.The Role Of Structure Of Behavior In Adopting A New TechnologyKim, Sang‐JoonInnovation, Diffusion, and the Adoption of TechnologyCulture, Transitivity, Life Course, Individual Experience, Structure of BehaviorTHURS.PM2This study argues that each individual has his/her own structure of behavior, which affects his/her adoption of new ideas. From a phenomenologicalperspective, I posit that an individual’s behavior is culturally constructed in the life course, it is not atomized but structured as a coordinated system within aperson, and thus the structure of behavior plays a critical role in facilitating to adopt new ideas. Specifically, when individuals respond to a new idea with theirown interconnected previous behaviors, they are likely to adopt the idea if the coordinated behaviors are compatible to it. Based on this argument, I examinewhether the structure of behavior can have a significant effect on the adoption of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) in the individual level. To identify thestructure of behavior in the individual level, I newly measure behavioral connectedness, defined as how densely an individual’s behaviors are interconnected interms of the compatibility of a new idea, by using the definitions of transitivity and density in the social network analysis. The logistic regression model showsthat the behavioral connectedness is significantly related to the probability of accepting the new technology. It means that the internal fit amonginstitutionalized behaviors is important in investigating behavioral responses to a new technology. Finally, this study tells us that an individual’s behavior isrepeatedly coordinated and re‐organized in response to new ideas, and the structure of behavior can be an important micro‐level factor to facilitate macrolevelchanges.