Assignment 7, Option 1

As many of you can probably relate, my inbox is constantly flooded with e-mail messages, most of which are not directed exclusively at me. Instead, the majority of the e-mail messages I receive are sent to hundreds, if not thousands of individuals, all of whom are listed on what is known as a list serve. I probably belong to about 20 list serves, some of which I joined voluntarily, but most of which I simply got placed on for a variety of reasons. Regardless of my level of interest for each group, however, each list serve that I belong to is representative of a community.

One community that I belong to is my sorority. Due to our e-mail list serve, any member of the sorority can send an e-mail to every member of the house. According to Social Networking Analysis, the sorority list serve produces social capital, enabling all members of the house access to the same information.

One aspect that contributes to the production of social capital is the social network that is created. When an e-mail is sent through the list serve, the sender takes the role of the “actor”, establishing ties between me and the 100 other members of the community. With each e-mail I receive, ties are made between my own egocentric network, and the various other actors on the list serve. While all members of the list serve can be considered to be strong ties due to our frequent contact with each other, often times weak ties are established as well. Members of the list serve will often times forward messages they received from individuals in their own separate social networks and forward them to the list serve. In such an instance, my egocentric network establishes weak ties with a unique source, or someone I do not otherwise have frequent contact with. I often find such weak ties beneficial for they expose me to individuals I would not encounter within my own strong social network.

Additionally, the sorority list serve exemplifies the common ground principle, in that it fosters “commitment to shared values, mores meanings, and a shared historical identification” (Haythornwaite, 2007). Everyone on the sorority list serve is on it for the same reason, due to the fact that all 100 individuals chose to join the sorority in order to establish a shared identity. Common ground feeds into the social capital of the network in that all of the members of the list serve require similar knowledge. Everyone similarly benefits from the knowledge distributed to the list serve, which is often in regards to weekly chapter meetings, social and philanthropic events.

Lastly, the concept of reciprocity is seen through the list serve in that “affective-laden relationships” are established. While the president may iterate general messages through the list serve, various other individuals reciprocate and add further information that needs to be addressed. For example, the philanthropy chair will organize a certain event in correlation with the budget that was allotted and voiced by the finance chair. Relationships therefore built off of what was said by other actors in the network.

There is no doubt that CMC facilitates the inner workings of the sorority. While it is clear that such communities were able to survive before the use of computers, it can be assumed that some communities have since become more efficient through the use of CMC, such as a list serve. There is an evident online/offline synergy between the real-life FtF interaction of the sorority and the CMC that occurs through the list serve. The amount of information that needs to be provided to the entire community would be impossible to condense into our once-a-week chapter meetings. The list serve allows members of the sorority to elaborate on, or respond to what was mentioned at the meeting. While the list serve will never be able to replace chapter meetings it in no doubt enhances the networking abilities that the network strives to achieve.

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