My sorority is a community; we have strong interpersonal ties each other because we each have a common identity of being in the same sorority, jargon only we can understand as well, and a shared focus as members of an organization. My sorority exemplifies strong characteristics of a utopic Gemeinschaft ideal.
The actors of my social network are my sorority sisters. I have strong ties with them; we communicate everyday, FtF and through CMC. There is homophily because we each have close ties with the Asian community, believe in community service, and work together for the sorority. We usually like the same types of music and have similar interests. This creates strong social capital because we are able to relate and connect to each other and trust each other.
Many types of relationships are maintained in my network. I have relationships with some actors that are organizationally based; other stronger ties, involve matters that dwell outside of sorority matters and involve more "important matters". This contributes to my egocentric network because I am able to relate to at least one person on for the different situations I encounter (school, organization, living situation, etc). Depending on the nature of the matter, I talk to the person who will be able to understand or help me the most. Internal groups in my network exist; I consider those in my network to be part of distinct groups, sometimes grouped by age, living location or major. If I had questions of graduation for example, I'd talk to the members of my network who are also graduating, thus grouped by age. Also, similar fraternities or sororities that are also in the greater Cornell Greek community share weak ties with me. We are connected by the fact we are both Greek, but being in different organizations weakens the ties.
My community is influenced by CMC. I have different schedules with my network. We stay connected through an email list serve, instant messaging, and through the phone. Each medium has a different purpose; list serve, organizational; instant messaging, personal matters; phone, more immediate matters. My ties through CMC are also different in my network than in FtF. I communicate with different sisters about different topics, depending on the medium. These interactions help build our relationship FtF. My network is often separated into groups based on the best medium to contact each other. I know which medium through which I can most likely talk to someone in my network.
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3 comments:
I think it’s extremely interesting to see how prominent the Greek system is on community as you and several others have named your respective houses as your communities. You did a great job at describing how the system promotes both strong and weak ties. Do you think that you have any weak ties with alumni or other sisters from your sorority in other schools? I was left curious if there were any ways that you can identify in which reciprocity affected your sorority, and if so, was there any CMC involved to enhance the interaction. Otherwise, I really enjoyed reading your post.
I think you identified you community very well and I especially liked how you were able to differentiate the different groups within each network; one for classes, one for living...etc. I also found your post interesting because you were able to determine that you use different media for different means of communication, both strong and weak, and social networking. Because I also identified a sorority as my community, I understand the strong and weak ties to various members and the different modes of communication, both FtF and CMC.
Hello there Jennifer. Let me just say that was a great post you made. I think you did an excellent job explaining the aspects of the Greek community in terms of the features of social networks we've learned about in class. I think it would have been interesting to see some instances of reciprocity in your network, because I feel as though in your situation, they would be numerous and varied. However, I very much enjoyed your explanation of the entire Greek community in terms of strong ties and weak ties.
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