Dan Gordon (Blue Blog)
Dan's comments:
Comm 245 Blue: 8 "My whole life I have known I should have been born female."
Comm 245 Blue: 8 - "But what if I don't want kids?"
For this assignment we chose to do a single topic. We decided to look at support threads involving dieting advice. Because none of the threads we found had 20 responses we followed 3 threads until we had enough cases. The first thread was posted by an 18 year old man who was hoping to lose about 70 to 80 pounds. He listed details about his personal habits and his goals for weight loss. The second thread detailed a man coming off of a recent illness during which he was pretty inactive. In his post he asked for advice regarding low activity weight loss that would help him lose enough weight to start being active again. The third thread was an introduction by a woman who hadn't posted in quite some time and was looking for advice to give and receive regarding her efforts to lose weight. The posters on the three threads generally had good advice and encouraged each other to be positive.
Our results are as follows:
| % inter-rater reliability | 0.825 |
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| frequency | %of msgs |
| Information |
| 17 | 0.85 | |
| Tangible assistance | 4 | 0.2 | ||
| Esteem support |
| 9 | 0.45 | |
| Network support |
| 2 | 0.1 | |
| Emotional support | 2 | 0.1 | ||
| Humor |
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| 1 | 0.05 |
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Almost every post offered some sort of information whether it was general advice or specific weight loss tips. As this is an advice forum, there is not much of a point to post anything that doesn't yield some sort of beneficial information. Because of this the percentage of posts yielding information was far greater than in the Braithwaite study.
Posters tended to offer a lot more information than they did tangible assistance. Some posters offered to help others put together a diet plan specific to their needs. Our tangible assistance percentage was slightly lower than Braithwaithe's. We attribute this to the fact that with weight loss and dieting there is little tangible assistance that can be offered in a CmC setting.
Network support refers those seeking advice to professionals or organizations which specialize in the specific area they need help in. The thread which we coded had only a small amount of network support.
Emotional support helps in coping with certain difficult issues. Because the thread we examined was focused on weight loss, there was little along the lines of emotional support. People in this thread were seeking practical advice as opposed to emotional support. Because of this our percentage for emotional support was lower than Braithwaite's.
Esteem support involves the validation of other's opinion/position in order to boost their confidence. The threads we examined had a large proportion of esteem support. This is because success in weight loss and dieting is closely related to one's confidence and the effort they put towards sticking to their diet. People were willing to boost another person's self-esteem, but were reluctant to identify with another person emotionally. Dieters did not feel bad for other's being overweight, but rather sent the message that you can lose weight if you make an effort. Another possible explanation is a CFO perspective that it is more difficult to convey emotion and relate to others in a short period of time in a text-based communication. It also clear some posters knew each other from past googlegroup experiences, and these were the posters giving emotional support, which is consistent with SIP theory.
Because the thread was one that focused on weight loss and dieting, posters rarely used humor. We would think that this type of support forum is not the proper place to joke around and the coding percentages show this.
General information support and esteem support were the most frequent forms of support. It seems that CmC limits the effectiveness of tangible support, at least in regards tot he topic of weight loss and dieting. Esteem support was frequent because of the heavy demands weight loss and dieting can have on one's confidence and will power. We believe that the percentages for the different support categories vary depending on the topic being focused on. The fact that all those posting in the thread have a common goal or knowledge of weight loss makes them far less judgmental of each other. The threads we read through had members who identified with each other as a community. Because the thread was a support group it is unlikely that people would be reluctant to discuss their problems. The anonymity and social distance offered by the thread made it easier for posters to discuss their weight loss concerns. The absence of pictures and gating features made it easy to discuss the topic in an online forum. Instead of being judged based on appearance or weight, people were judged based on their effort to lose weight. This is an imporntant aspect of the anonymity and social distance offered via the thread.
Overall, we believe the subject matter is why our results differed slightly from Braithwaite's.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.diet/browse_frm/thread/b89cb051e6f351b4/928bd5528cdcdab8#928bd5528cdcdab8
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