The Quality of Online and Offline Relationships: The Role of Multiplexity and Duration of Social Relationships

Recent studies have shown that adolescents use the Internet not only to maintain social relationships with distant relatives and friends but also to create new relationships online; some of these friendships become integrated into their social circle. Research has focused mainly on the effect of the Internet on existing relationships or the nature of online-only ties, so studies comparing the quality of online and face-to-face relationships are missing. The goal of this study is to bridge this gap. In keeping with previous studies on social association, we argue that the quality of social relationships is dependent on duration and diversity of topics and activities carried together. Time is important, as it facilitates the development of a collective shared history and identity. Intimacy develops through the participation in shared activities and discussion of diverse issues of personal concern. Using a representative sample of the adolescent population in Israel, we find that closeness to a friend is a function of social similarity, content and activity multiplexity, and duration of the relationships. Friendships originated in the Internet are perceived as less close and supportive because they are relatively new and online friends are involved in less joint activities and less topics of discussion. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Quality of Online and Offline Relationships: The Role of Multiplexity and Duration of Social Relationships

Recent studies have shown that adolescents use the Internet not only to maintain social relationships with distant relatives and friends but also to create new relationships online; some of these friendships become integrated into their social circle. Research has focused mainly on the effect of the Internet on existing relationships or the nature of online-only ties, so studies comparing the quality of online and face-to-face relationships are missing. The goal of this study is to bridge this gap. In keeping with previous studies on social association, we argue that the quality of social relationships is dependent on duration and diversity of topics and activities carried together. Time is important, as it facilitates the development of a collective shared history and identity. Intimacy develops through the participation in shared activities and discussion of diverse issues of personal concern. Using a representative sample of the adolescent population in Israel, we find that closeness to a friend is a function of social similarity, content and activity multiplexity, and duration of the relationships. Friendships originated in the Internet are perceived as less close and supportive because they are relatively new and online friends are involved in less joint activities and less topics of discussion. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

New Media/Internet Research Topics of the Association of Internet Researchers

This study summarizes prior reviews of new media and Internet research, and the growth of the term Internet in academic publications and online newsgroups. It then uses semantic network analysis to summarize the interests and concepts of an interdisciplinary group of Internet researchers, as represented by session titles and paper titles and abstracts from the 2003 and 2004 Association of Internet Researchers conferences. In both years, the most frequent words appearing in the paper abstracts included Internet, online, community, social, technology, and research. The 2003 papers emphasized topics such as the social analysis/research of online/Internet communication, community, and information, with particular coverage of access, individuals, groups, digital media, culture; role and process in e-organizations; and world development. The 2004 papers emphasized topics such as access; news and social issues; the role of individuals in communities; user-based studies; usage data; and blogs, women, and search policy, among others.     

New Media/Internet Research Topics of the Association of Internet Researchers

This study summarizes prior reviews of new media and Internet research, and the growth of the term Internet in academic publications and online newsgroups. It then uses semantic network analysis to summarize the interests and concepts of an interdisciplinary group of Internet researchers, as represented by session titles and paper titles and abstracts from the 2003 and 2004 Association of Internet Researchers conferences. In both years, the most frequent words appearing in the paper abstracts included Internet, online, community, social, technology, and research. The 2003 papers emphasized topics such as the social analysis/research of online/Internet communication, community, and information, with particular coverage of access, individuals, groups, digital media, culture; role and process in e-organizations; and world development. The 2004 papers emphasized topics such as access; news and social issues; the role of individuals in communities; user-based studies; usage data; and blogs, women, and search policy, among others.     

如何利用网络传播加快高新技术产品的扩散

高新技术企业成功的关键是实现产品的快速扩散，网络为高新技术产品的扩散提供了强有力的支持。分析探讨了网络媒体的特点，指出目前我国高新技术产品利用网络传播的可行性，最后给出了网络传播在高新技术产品扩散中的优势和高新技术产品网上传播策略。     

颠覆产业世界的互联网基因

作为一种业界隐喻,互联网基因意指产品的三个特征:产品成为互联网终端,服务依托云平台,需求感知敏捷化。三个特征的现实展开形成产品形态革命的趋势,即整体来看产品演变成"三位一体"的服务体系,动态来看服务体系通过迭代创新形成永续生命周期,宏观来看服务体系之间互联互通从而形成智能生产网络。互联网基因之所以颠覆产业世界,根本原因在于能够以低成本创造出新价值。新价值主要是以产品或服务设施为载体在需求感知基础上提供的服务增加值,在线运营平台是实现这种增加值的核心资产,平台运营商依托平台资产能够对相关行业发动价值颠覆。文章以信息类终端产品、传统IT企业和中介行业为案例对此进行了说明,并强调在线运营平台将会成为各行各业的产业链中枢和竞争焦点。最后从历史角度说明,互联网基因既符合产业服务化的一贯趋势,又是此趋势中的巨大飞跃,它超出了产业技术革命理论的ICT(信息、通信和技术)范式框架,所引起变革的深度堪比工业革命以来社会化大生产的出现。     

突发事件中网络谣言识别行为意向的影响因素研究

在突发事件中,“满天飞”的网络谣言会引发“次生灾害”,严重影响政府的应急处置;大多数网民主动识别谣言,才能阻断谣言扩散的网络通道。本文运用计划行为理论、风险感知理论、社会资本理论和威慑理论,构建突发事件中网络谣言识别行为意向影响因素的概念模型,并通过网络渠道收集调查问卷,进行了实证研究。研究发现,网民的态度、社会资本,惩罚的确定性、严厉性和敏捷性显著正向影响突发事件中网络谣言识别行为意向;网民的社会资本显著负向其感知风险,网民的感知风险显著正向影响其态度。     

Instant Messaging on Campus: Use and Integration in University Students' Everyday Communication

This article reviews the body of research on the use and role of instant messaging (IM) in campus life, and how IM is a key part of university students' communication. IM is a synchronous form of communication, and its speed, availability information, and support for multiple conversations have made it appealing for young people. With university students, in particular, showing a heavy reliance on IM, researchers have shown great interest in how university students use IM and how it is integrated in their social and academic life. While studies are emerging in various disciplines, no attempt has been made to integrate the disparate findings and approaches. This article synthesizes key findings, provides a map of the literature, and discusses conceptual problems inherent in the study of IM and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) that will help researchers identify key areas of study and opportunities for future investigation.     

Gender Scripts and the Internet: The Design and Use of Amsterdam's Digital City,by Els Rommes. Enschede,The Netherlands: Twente University Press, 2002. 304 pp. 24.00. ISBN 9-0365-1774-5

This article seeks to address how religion fits into the larger domain of Internet studies and why studies of religion within computer-mediated communication (CMC) need to be given more attention. An argument is made for the need to take religion online more seriously, not just because it is an interesting phenomenon or a popular use of the Internet, but also because religion continues to be an important part of contemporary life for many people. A summary of the growth and development of religion online is presented along with an overview of how religion has been approached and studied on the Internet. This review shows what CMC studies of religion might offer in approaching research questions related to authority, identity construction, and community online. It calls for recognition of the contribution, and possibilities that underrepresented areas within interdisciplinary research, like religion, might offer Internet studies as a whole.     

The Internet Defends Itself: The Network Neutrality Debate on the Web

This study examines the network neutrality debate, as represented online. The research begins by conducting network analysis to identify key websites, followed by retrieving the relevant documents and using content analysis. Results demonstrate that the online version of the debate skews heavily toward the pro-network neutrality side. The web debate also includes much higher proportions of voices from nonprofit sectors, especially nongovernmental organizations. Telecommunications companies and trade groups, which anchor the anti-network neutrality coalition, are relatively quiet online. These findings show groups that are less powerful making heavy use of online communication and, in light of the political history of the issue, they also suggest online mobilizing may help reshape the dynamics of issue advocacy.     

Instant Messaging on Campus: Use and Integration in University Students' Everyday Communication

This article reviews the body of research on the use and role of instant messaging (IM) in campus life, and how IM is a key part of university students' communication. IM is a synchronous form of communication, and its speed, availability information, and support for multiple conversations have made it appealing for young people. With university students, in particular, showing a heavy reliance on IM, researchers have shown great interest in how university students use IM and how it is integrated in their social and academic life. While studies are emerging in various disciplines, no attempt has been made to integrate the disparate findings and approaches. This article synthesizes key findings, provides a map of the literature, and discusses conceptual problems inherent in the study of IM and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) that will help researchers identify key areas of study and opportunities for future investigation.     

Cultured Technology: The Internet and Religious Fundamentalism

In this article we identify four principal dimensions of religious fundamentalism as they interact with the Internet: hierarchy, patriarchy, discipline, and seclusion. We also develop the concept of cultured technology, and analyze the ways communities reshape a technology and make it a part of their culture, while at the same time changing their customary ways of life and unwritten laws to adapt to it. Later, we give examples for our theoretical framework through an empirical examination of ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel. Our empirical study is based on a data set of 686,192 users and 60,346 virtual communities. The results show the complexity of interactions between religious fundamentalism and the Internet, and invite further discussions of cultured technology as a means to understand how the Internet has been culturally constructed, modified, and adapted to the needs of fundamentalist communities and how they in turn have been affected by it.     

Democratic and Anti-Democratic Regulators of the Internet: A Framework

We employ Lessig's framework of regulation to conceptualize the relationship between the Internet and democracy. Lessig defines four classes of regulators, forces that control and define systems such as the Internet. They are markets, architectures, norms, and laws. We propose that a “democratic regulator” is a force that serves to enhance civil or political liberties. And we argue by example that there are democratic (and, indeed, anti-democratic) regulators that control aspects of cyberspace. Expressing the democratic effects of the Internet in this manner may prove useful for future comparisons across existing Internet and democracy theories, especially in the realm of quantitative analyses.     

基于不稳定国家的网络舆情风险分析系统模型

国家风险是对一个国家的政治与社会稳定程度做出的整体评估。其不仅备受众多投资者的关注,而且也是许多国际关系研究学者及外交政策制定者的关注对象,特别是针对一些政权不稳定的国家。但传统的风险分析,侧重经济和金融领域,忽略了对高风险国家特别敏感的政治领域评估。随着互联网在大众传媒中的影响力与日俱增和相关技术的成熟,使得利用网络舆情建立风险分析系统变得十分有意思。本文提出了一个针对脆弱政权国家的网络挖掘和风险分析的系统模型,旨在从一个新的科学计算定量维度来捕捉不稳定国家的风险信号,为国际安全趋势预测和预警提供参考。     

Through the Looking Glass: Twenty Years of Chinese Internet Research

This article is a report on a research project that collected detailed information on articles, book chapters, books, and so on, published by academics on the Chinese Internet between 1990 and early 2013. The findings of the meta-review of 20 years of Chinese Internet research, as gleaned from quantitative and qualitative analysis of the collected body of publications, are presented and discussed in this report. It engages with the conclusions drawn by previous meta-studies, and seeks to shed a critical, self-reflexive light onto the main discursive formations of their research field. The article concludes that there is still a lot of scope for growth in studies of the Internet in China and lists several of the identified research gaps.     

Disciplining the Future: A Critical Organizational Analysis of Internet Studies

This article provides a critical, cautionary stance toward the future structure of “Internet studies” as a field. A social constructionist reading of the process of organizing reveals the ways in which apparently obdurate structures are constructed and negotiated through everyday discursive practices. Subsequent structures and practices function ideologically to control organizational members in a concertive fashion by shaping and directing the conceptual frameworks for inquiry and action in a seemingly natural way. Definitions and metaphors construct conceptual boundaries of meaning for the field of inquiry, delimiting and protecting over time what counts as Internet and Internet studies. Over time, origins of knowledge are hidden within the structure of the organizations and a culture of unobtrusive control emerges. Unless radical measures are taken to reflexively interrogate everyday routines and habitual ways of talking in academic environments, the future field of Internet studies will not transcend the traditions of the academy but will be entrenched in and reproduce traditional structures and a traditional scholarly enterprise.     

Disciplining the Future: A Critical Organizational Analysis of Internet Studies

This article provides a critical, cautionary stance toward the future structure of “Internet studies” as a field. A social constructionist reading of the process of organizing reveals the ways in which apparently obdurate structures are constructed and negotiated through everyday discursive practices. Subsequent structures and practices function ideologically to control organizational members in a concertive fashion by shaping and directing the conceptual frameworks for inquiry and action in a seemingly natural way. Definitions and metaphors construct conceptual boundaries of meaning for the field of inquiry, delimiting and protecting over time what counts as Internet and Internet studies. Over time, origins of knowledge are hidden within the structure of the organizations and a culture of unobtrusive control emerges. Unless radical measures are taken to reflexively interrogate everyday routines and habitual ways of talking in academic environments, the future field of Internet studies will not transcend the traditions of the academy but will be entrenched in and reproduce traditional structures and a traditional scholarly enterprise.     

Internet Galaxy Meets Postnational Constellation: Prospects for Political Solidarity After the Internet

France's early adoption of Minitel and EDI in the 1980s was both a stimulus and an inhibitor to Internet-based e-commerce. It hindered the adoption of the Internet, but it also created the conditions for a rapid catch up when France switched to the Internet in 1997. The French were already open to the use of IT, a dense network of online specialists and information service providers already existed, and many investments required to go digital were already made. On the other hand, by mid-2001 France was still far behind the early adopters of e-commerce over the Internet. This is because the French catch-up was checked by the implosion of the Internet financial bubble in 2000. Second, many Internet-based business models did not fit the French distribution channels. These differences suggest that e-commerce paths of development can be differentiated among nations, because both needs and solutions differ. This conclusion goes against the conventional wisdom that e-commerce will lead to the emergence of an integrated global marketplace in which common commercial practices will be implemented.     

Fizz in the Field: Toward a Basis for an Emergent Internet Studies

This article examines the history and future prospects of the formation of Internet studies. It is argued that although a traditional field or disciplinary structure is not yet in place, the current interdisciplinary aggregations may have the makings of institutionalized academic units. Through comparison with the institutionalization of other interdisiciplinary areas of study (primarily that of communication and cultural studies), an argument is made for the need to create a firm intellectual foundation on which an Internet/studies can be built. Such a foundation should not only include sufficient and clear understanding of cognate fields but also include a foregrounding of power (as theoretical construct and practice) as a means of engaging the field in the world.     

The Reality beyond the Hype: Mobile Internet is Primarily an Extension of PC-Based Internet

The mobile Internet (MI) has been hyped as the next big thing by telecom operators, handset manufacturers, and content providers. However, recent studies indicate that the usage of Internet via mobile phones has remained quite flat. The authors inquire into this discrepancy by focusing on actual usage of the MI and the motivating factors behind its use. Based on focus-group interviews in Norway and Hungary, they argue that MI usage is interrelated with and is an extension of the personal computer (PC)–based Internet. The key motivation behind MI use is to attain information in situations in which the PC is out of reach. In effect, MI has not led to the development of new usages. The expectation that the development of new killer applications will lead to an explosion of new usage is therefore misguided. MI usage is and will perhaps continue to be a mere extension of PC-based Internet usage—and such use activities are the very nature of MI.