Strategic identities in cyberspace

Explicating Evolutionary Epistemological Concerns on Gossip and Cyberbullying

Gossip and bullying have psychosocial concerns and are usually considered as vice, bad, hence, non-virtuous. This paper deals with a plausible modest account for them to be considered not as bad, rather significant behavioral and epistemic tools from evolutionary and epistemological points of view. It adheres to a relationship between gossip and bullying in real (sociobiological-psychological domains) and within cyberspaces. Considering the formation of social relations and orders in reality and virtual platforms, it attempts to understand the issues and advantages gossip poses to societies from a reputational perspective. While evolutionary explanations of complex social behavior are not only difficult, but controversial too, this paper aims to present an evolutionary epistemological perspective to the act of gossiping, to understand the vantage it may have or provide. Usually, gossip and bullying are considered as having a negative connotation, but these are explicated as epistemic access tools for regulation, social order, knowledge gain, and niche construction. Consequently, gossip is showcased as an evolutionary epistemic achievement and virtuous enough to deal with the partly unknown features of the World.

Is your online identity different from your offline identity? – A study on the college students’ online identities in China

This study took innovative perspectives in studying the college students’ online identities in China. Three modes of online identities were found to satisfy the participants’ different needs, which indicate the principle of what is lacking tends to appear online. The logic of ‘imagination–reflection circle’ explains these online behaviours and show the ‘rationality’ in choosing among different identities to fulfill the users’ different needs according to different online settings. The college students showed a better control of themselves compared with their period of adolescences. Under this situation, most of the online experiments are beneficial to these college students, except when the transition between different identities is difficult.

The helpfulness of online reviews

Purpose

Online reviews are increasingly available for a wide range of products and services in e-commerce. Most consumers rely heavily on online reviews when making purchase decisions, so an important topic is that of understanding what makes some online reviews helpful in the eyes of consumers. Researchers have demonstrated the benefits of the presence of customer reviews to an online retailer, however, few studies have investigated how images in review content and the facial expressions of reviewers’ avatars influence the judgment of online review helpfulness. This study draws on self-construal theory, attribution theory and affect-as-information theory to empirically test a model of the interaction effects of images in review content and the facial expressions of reviewers’ avatars on online review helpfulness. Furthermore, the purpose of this paper is to identify an underlying mechanism of causal attribution toward store performance on the above effects.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducted two online experiments. Study 1 is a 2 (images in review content: one person with a product vs a group of people with a product) ×2 (facial expression of the reviewer’s avatar: happy vs angry) between-subjects design. Study 2 is a 3 (image: product alone vs one person with a product vs a group of people with a product) ×2 (facial expression of the reviewer’s avatar: happy vs angry) ×3 (valence of the review: positive vs negative vs neutral) between-subjects design.

Findings

The results indicate that when consumers were exposed to a happy-looking avatar, they were likely to express higher perceptions of online review helpfulness in response to an image showing a group of people in a restaurant than they would for an image of one person in the same situation. In contrast, when consumers were exposed to an angry-looking avatar, their perceptions of online review helpfulness did not differ in response to images of either a group of people or of one person. Furthermore, cause attribution toward store performance mediated the interaction between images in content of reviews and the facial expression of a reviewer’s avatar on the perceptions of online review helpfulness.

Practical implications

The authors provide insights into how to develop guidelines on how online reviews should be written so that readers perceive them to be helpful, and how to design effective reward mechanisms for customer feedback.

Originality/value

Compared with previous studies, this study provides further contributions in three ways. First, it contributes to the literature on review content by showing which images in reviews are deemed to be helpful. Second, it extends previous findings from the literature relating to online peer reviews by demonstrating the importance of facial expressions in reviewers’ avatars (i.e. happy vs angry) when explaining helpfulness, rather than the strength of purchase intent. Third, this study contributes by further highlighting a novel mechanism which shows that a causal attribution toward store performance motivates the perceptions of online review helpfulness.

How user personality and social value orientation influence avatar-mediated friendship

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of user personality and vlaues on the number of connections users make, the number of requests for connections that users give out, and the number of connections invitations users receive.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a field study of 179 participants interacting in a novel virtual world. The world’s server logs are used to capture sociometrics about the users and their interaction.

Findings

Findings suggest that personality and values influence the number of friends users make and the number of friendship requests users give out, but not the number of friendship invitations users receive. Only one personality trait – conscientiousness – exhibits homophily.

Originality/value

Perosnality and social value orientation have rarely been studied together in information systems (IS) research, despite research showing the two have an impact on IS relevant constructs. The use of server logs for data capture is novel. Avatar friendship is an under-researched concept in IS.

Cyberstalking: The Technology of Hate

This article discusses the emergence of cyberstalking as a means of victimising individuals and minority groups. However, rather than focusing on the activities of far-right groups, we discuss how technology can encourage individuals to harass others. The central argument made is that technology both enables and invites participation in criminal or antisocial behaviour from individuals who would not normally take part in such activities. One way in which this can be explained is by suggesting that some of the social and technological characteristics of the Internet act together in order to lower inhibitions and establish new norms. For instance, the anonymity offered by the Internet enables people to participate in activities such as encouraging violence against others with little fear of retaliation. In addition, by allowing a cyberstalker to harm another person at a distance, the victim is effectively depersonalised. In this way it can be argued that some of those who sympathise with the goals of far-right organisations may be reluctant to act in the offline world but more willing to act in the online world.

The Protagonist and Their Avatar

Given the active and authentic nature of Massively-Multiplayer Online Games, researchers have begun to question the use of this virtual setting as a teaching / learning tool (Barab et al., 2010; Squire, 2006). Specific findings in virtual environments show that several personal factors mediate an individual's experiences within that environment (Przybylski, Rigby, & Ryan, 2010). Although physical-world research has focused on the personal factor of personality and its influence on learning (Caprara et al., 2011; Furnham, Chamorro-Premuzic, & McDougall, 2003; Gallagher, 1996; Olesen, Thomsen, Schnieber & Tønnesvang, 2010), very little research on personality within virtual settings has been conducted. Thus, it is important to explore more about personality changes between individuals and their avatars in virtual settings. Findings from the current study show statistically different personality score for individuals and their avatars across all domains of the Five-Factor Model. However, for three of the domains, Neuroticism, Openness, and Conscientiousness, consistent patterns of difference existed. Overall implications for these findings are discussed.

Virtual worlds as digital workplaces

The primary aim of the current paper is to explore ways in which organizations can benefit from virtual environments to expand their social and professional spheres. Applying the theory of third places to virtual worlds, our conceptual model incorporates practical organizational affordances within three composite dimensions. First, we propose that through their unique, supportive and neutral environments, virtual worlds may reduce the prevalence of social hierarchies, via decreasing the emphasis on predetermined ranks, stereotypes, and cultural or geographic variation. Second, we posit that via encouraging open communication within the form of synchronous and real-time interactions, virtual worlds enable efficient teamwork and collaborative learning. Finally, we emphasize that these friendly, secure, and supportive environments may contribute to the reduction of certain work-related stressors, and in turn promote professional development activities. We conclude by discussing practical implications and future research directions.

Review of Virtual Environment Studies on Social and Group Phenomena

This article provides a review of previously published studies on virtual environments (VEs), focusing especially on empirical articles on social and group phenomena in VEs and their methodological and theoretical trends. VEs can be defined as communication systems in which interactants share the same three-dimensional digital space and can navigate, manipulate objects, and interact with one another via avatars. When examining the methodological and theoretical choices of these studies, four trends could be identified that characterize group studies on VEs: (a) testing the applicability of real-life, social behavior norms in VEs, (b) a lack of work group studies using VEs, (c) the micro-level treatment of social and groups, and (d) a lack of covering theory. Propositions for future research are presented.

Les consommateurs des mondes virtuels: construction identitaire et expérience de consommation dans Second Life

Cet article explore dans les mondes virtuels le lien qui existe entre les individus et leurs avatars en termes d'identité. Les résultats de cette étude tendent à démontrer que les univers virtuels et les interactions qu'ils offrent d'un point de vue social et marchand sont des outils de construction identitaire. Cette recherche exploratoire s'appuie sur une étude qualitative de 34 entretiens menés en immersion dans le monde virtuel Second Life. Lors de son passage au monde virtuel, l'individu doit construire une identité en opérant un transfert, partiel ou total, de son identité réelle à son identité virtuelle. L'objet de cet article est d'examiner cette transition et son résultat en termes de positionnement identitaire. Quatre types de positionnements identitaires sont identifiés: la duplication, l'amélioration, la transformation et la métamorphose.

Online communication preferences across age, gender, and duration of Internet use

The present study explored variations in online communication and relationship preferences for friends, family, coworkers, and unknown individuals across gender (men, women), age (young, middle, late), and duration of Internet use (low, medium, high). A total of 174 individuals participated in this study. They were divided into two gender (86 men and 88 women), three age (60 young, 60 middle, and 54 late) and three Internet use duration (60 low, 58 medium, and 54 high) groups. All participants completed several questionnaires that assessed online communication and relationship building preferences. Results indicated no significant main effect for gender and online communication and relationship preferences. The main effect for age was significant for online communication with friends and unknown individuals. Young adults indicated their higher preferences for online communication with friends and unknown individuals compared to middle and late adult age groups. The main effect for duration of Internet use was significant for online communication and relationship preferences. High Internet users indicated higher scores on online communication and relationship building, compared to their counterparts. No significant main effects for duration of Internet use were significant on any of the offline characteristics. Implications of these findings and their relevance to mental health issues and organizational environment were discussed.

A quantitative analysis of the content and structure of public requests for private interaction posted in online public chatrooms

Evidence is presented suggesting that the majority (88%) of online requests for private computer-mediated communication posted in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) chatrooms are derivations of the following prototypical structure: (a) a target specifier, e.g., "any girls"; (b) the communication request itself, e.g., "wanna chat"; (c) a self-identifier, e.g., "to a guy"; and (d) a communication directive, e.g., "msg me!" A methodology capable of identifying individual differences in the frequency of language usage on IRC was developed and used to generate a taxonomy of the phrases commonly used in each of these four components. This taxonomy of 82 phrases accounted for 14.5% of the total language used across a variety of IRC chatrooms and 77% of the words used in requests for private interaction. It also identified at least one component in 83% of all requests for private interaction posted on IRC, while having only a 10% rate of false (non-request) identification. The reduced complexity and increased explicitness of requests for private interaction on IRC is interpreted using politeness theory. The application of the current methodology for research assessing the formation of online romantic and interpersonal relationships is considered, as are the utility of quantitative analyses of discourse structures in computer-mediated communication for profiling people who use IRC for various purposes.

Child seduction and self-representation on the Internet

This paper presents a case study of a man charged with the offense of downloading child pornography from the Internet. He had used the Internet to traffic child pornography, and, in addition, to locate children to abuse, to engage in inappropriate sexual communication with children, and to communicate with other pedophiles. Such offenses were facilitated by self-representing in Chat rooms as both a child and an adult. The case study illustrates how such offenders move through a repertoire of offending behavior and discusses the role that the Internet can play in supporting inappropriate and disinhibited sexual behavior that victimizes children through the trading of child pornography and possible child seduction. The Internet is seen to play a unique role in allowing individuals to self-represent aspects that might otherwise remain hidden or dormant.