Chris Bostick (yellow)
Mike Andromalos
Online social support has many advantages including, 24/7 access, social distance, interaction management, and anonymity. It is for these reasons that people seek help so often in specialized online communities. Braithwaite, Waldron and Finn broke down social support messages into five categories of information, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support, and emotional support.
The messages we coded were from a group discussing sports injuries, another group discussing deaths and injuries related to sports, and on an unrelated note a divorce help group helping a man get over rejection.
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.7416667 | |
| | | | frequency | % of msgs |
| Information | | 12 | 0.6 |
| Tangible assistance | 2 | 0.1 |
| Esteem support | | 8 | 0.4 |
| Network support | | 3 | 0.15 |
| Emotional support | 11 | 0.55 |
| Humor | | | 5 | 0.25 |
Following the guidelines we coded 20 messages and marked a 1 if one of the five categories was present in the message, and put a 0 if the quality was not present. The messages were analyzed with information meaning advice or teaching, tangible assistance being performance of a direct task or expression of willingness, esteem support meaning relief of blame and validation, network support signifying companions and presence, emotional support being sympathy and encouragement, and humor being present or not. Are results showing an inter-rater reliability of 74% which is rather low showing a lot of disagreement between me and my partner. However because it is above 70% are results are trustworthy. Braithwaite’s study found information at 31% and emotional support at 40% to be the most coded categories found in the messages of the disability group. Our results show similar finding with Information at60% and Emotional support at 55% to be the most frequent. Our discrepancies were not heavily concentrated on one particular category but were spread out amongst all of them and were a result of slightly different interpretations of words. We found that it was easy to come to consensus once an idea was explained. Are results support Braithwaite’s study very closely in each category.
In closing we found in our research that anonymity and social distance lead to people being able to get help with a range of problems without insecurities. Our findings support the Side theory were when social identity was salient and members deinvdivualated, leads to greater social influence, attraction, and polarization. This helped people feel more comfortable with sharing problems and sharing advice.
Sites used:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.arthritis/browse_thread/thread/2a6118110cb78ffa/a3f3eec22bfcebdc?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#a3f3eec22bfcebdc
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.artists.springsteen/browse_thread/thread/1327a262e315bb7b/923041a6e2ec2e7e?hl=en&lnk=st&q=sports++injury+support#923041a6e2ec2e7e
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.divorce/browse_thread/thread/e7b919f25d282d20/59e4f1b80eea4b41?hl=en&lnk=st&q=rod+knock+support#59e4f1b80eea4b41
2 comments:
added note, Blog by Me and my partner Mike Andromalos(yellow)
Great post. I really like how you related your findings back to the SIDE theory and the ideas of anonymity and social distance. Good connections there. I'd be interested in finding out how the topic of the messages (sports injuries vs deaths in sports vs a divorce) influenced your findings. For example, did you find more tangible support in the group discussion about sports injuries? Or was there more esteem support for the messages to the man getting a divorce? While your findings were still interesting and significant, I would be very interested in seeing that difference.
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