7-op. 2 Facebook Stalking and the Brunswikian Lends Model

Who doesn’t love a chance to facebook stalk? With option 2, I thought it was a great opportunity to get to know my sibling better while doing my homework! My younger sister is a freshman in high school, and has changed a lot in the past few years since I’ve gone to college. Whenever I am home she is always gone with her friends and I rarely see her, plus I have spent a lot of time traveling outside the country and have not had much time to spend with her. So I thought I could get to know her better using the Brunswikian Len Model (after all, Facebook is always an accurate display of people, right?) Since her facebook profile has lots of information and updates, I thought combining cue validity (the cues that she provides about herself) and cue utilization (using the cues she has left on facebook) would allow for functional achievement (or, an accurate judgment of her personality).
There are four individual-environmental links that are described in the Brunswikian Lens Model. The first one, self-directed identity claims, is information that one puts up that provides information about oneself that represents you and is information your friends will understand. For example, my sister is married to one of her camp friends who lives in a different state. This shows her sense of humor of being married to a friend, as well as shows her connection to friends outside of her highschool/immediate social network. To all her camp friends they know who her friend is and they will understand their close relationship and why they are married on facebook. This also helps to show her extraversion, because it shows that my sister is outgoing and has connections to other people, mainly a good friend who wants to be married to her on facebook. She also has many quotes listed that are inside jokes and only her immediate friends would understand. For example, I have no idea why the quote “"is that a wall?" -"yes it is."” However, her friends probably understand it and laugh hysterically every time they read it. These inside jokes also serve to show her extraversion because she has friends who understand them
She also has posted many other-directed identity claims, which is information she has put up to inform others about herself. For example, her about me reads “short. brunettte. vegetarian. dr.pepper♥stuffing<3.

There is a picture of her in her camp bunk before she and her friends are going to play color war. There are also many “graffiti” drawings on her wall that basically all read some variation of “I LOVE YOU JULZI!” that her friends have left her.
This shows that she is extraverted, as well as agreeable, and some of them mention activities they have done, implying activities that my sister has done outside of facebook.

From all these analyzations, it appears that my sister is very conscientious of providing an image of herself as being popular and having lots of friends. With all the comments on her wall and graffiti drawings from her friends claiming their love for her, and her exclamations of love for her friends (especially Vicki..) it can be seen that she is extraverted and agreeable, while also a bit neurotic about showing her “popularity.” While I have learned a lot about my sister through facebook stalking her, I think I should spend more time with her one on one. After all, she is obviously so loveable, as all her friends repeatedly point out.

my comments:
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7 (1) Sweet home Delta Gamma...

This semester is my second as a member of Cornell's chapter of Delta Gamma Women's Fraternity. Our national website (www.deltagamma.org) says that DG "offers to women of all ages a rich heritage; a continuity based on sound and tested principles of personal integrity, personal responsibility, and intellectual honesty." While this statement holds true, it is certainly not the only area of experiences a woman will have as a Delta Gamma. In fact, we have many qualities, especially some relative to SNA. We share strong bonds of sisterhood, but our socialization reaches beyond our own house. We all have friends outside of DG. We socialize with many other houses on campus-- mostly fraternities, but other sororities as well. We also sponsor two major social events each semester in which each sister is allowed to invite a certain number of guests. Finally, we lend support (financial and otherwise to our philanthropy projects. Our national DG philanthropy is Service for Sight, but DGs can also be found at other Greek events such as Theta's "Tip-A-Canoe," Phi Kappa Tau's "Phi Tug," or Alpha Xi Delta's annual Twister tournament.

Additionally, DG has a common purpose, and (once again) our strong bond of sisterhood. Our shared views and agendas can be observed in the way we socialize together (which we do...a lot) and in the way we work toward achieving a philanthropic goal. We share a common language through our traditions that have been passed down from our three founders. For example, only members know the significance of each of the Greek letters that appear on our badge.

CMC does, in deed, affect the way we interact. Of course, through Facebook it is very easy for all of us to identify as Delta Gammas. We have groups for our respective pledge classes, as well as a Cornell chapter and global network groups. Through new Facebook applications, we can insert the Delta Gamma badge on our Facebook homepages. Also, we use our e-mail listserve to communicate with each other. Finally, we are able to post pictures of social events and other major events. While the vast majority of our interactions and communication takes place offline, there is a separate online synergy that allows us to identify as a group even in the online realm.

Assignment 7: Option 1

For assignment number 7, I chose option number one. Using the SNA attributes, I decided to choose my family as the community to identify and describe. My family includes my father, mother, two younger sisters, and my younger brother. Nodes extend from my family that I live with to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents…you get the picture.

I believe that my family relates to Gemeinshacft’s explanation of community because we are bonded by strong interpersonal ties, we share focuses, have a common purpose, language and identity. Our relationships “crisscross and reinforce one another” and have commitment towards a “shared set of values, mores, meanings, and a shared historical identity” (Etzioni & Etzioni, 1999). For example, we all support one another, we all believe in respecting our elders, we all use our manners, and we, of course, share cousins and grandparents and uncles. We spend a lot of time with one another, which further reinforces our strong bonds. We stay connected through face to face interaction when we are all together, and over the phone and internet when we apart (for example: when my Dad is traveling or when I’m away at school) and we attend and watch each others sports games.

In regards to whether or not CMC affects my family as a community, it does. CMC interactions allow me to keep in touch and up to date with my family while I’m away at school – for example, I’ll regularly email my Dad because I know he’ll check his email before picking up his cell phone while he’s working, I send my Mom email from time to time because she just learned how to use and gets excited when someone writes to her, and I constantly talk with my sisters and brothers on AIM. Without CMC interaction, my contact time with my family would be greatly reduced.

#7- SNA communities

This is not the first time I mentioned this online community of mine, but it really serves as a perfect example for many of the group-related topics in this class.

In this virtual social network (it's not facebook or anything like that; it's an online coordination forum for a MMPORG), the obvious common ground we all share is our involvement with the game we all play. We all use abbreviations that we assume everyone in the forum would know (like PKing- player killing, RPing- roleplaying, VSB- very strongly barricaded buildings). The role-playing is an important commitment we all accept as a part of the community. Any intentional break from the role-playing without a good reason and without the proverbial double parentheses that we use for OOC ((out of character)) dialogue would generally earn you an "arched eyebrow."

Because the members of the forum all operate in different parts of the actual game world outside the forum, we often ask each other for favours in other parts of the virtual world (reciprocity). We ask other players to come to our locations to give us a hand against "zombies." We don't exactly "expect" other players to return the favour, but we certainly would feel a bit angry if we ask someone whom we have helped in the past and they turn us down flatly. I guess the more appropriate way to put it is that we establish friendships where we positively help each other.

The social structures of the network is also interesting because we have strong ties and weak ties. We know really well a small group of people who work in zones around us. Then there are the people a bit further away that we don't know as well, but may be tied to the people we know. These weak ties provide us with information from places far away. For example, if one ammo restocking site was swarmed with zombies, we can tap into our weak ties to find out where another restocking site further away may be relatively safe.

So yes, even in this little space (it's not facebook, it's not some internet dating site), we have quite a thriving social network that matches many of the attributes of the SNA. Though we don't have any interactions offline (no online/offline synergies), we still have really close connections everyday as we go to the gaming world.

Assignment 7 behavioral residue the stronger pair

I do not want to be too ordinary, but I was very curious as to how this would turn out if I were to do an analysis of someone I know very well, using, of all things, their facebook profile. To do this, I am going to use the Brunswikian Lens Model and its four mechanisms which I will explain, and to standardize the personality judgments, I will use the Five Factor Model from Hancock and Dunham.

The Brunswikian Lens Model uses four mechanisms to look at cue validity and cue utilization. The idea is very similar to the previous posts in this blog about impression formation and impression management; the key difference is that with the Brunswikian Lens Model, I will be looking at the cues as interactive elements of the profile. This means that her profile is not made of static elements that she produced, but of interactive elements that her social network, including herself, combines to create an impression of her.

The four mechanisms, or categories, that link her to her environment that we will use to analyze are, self-directed identity claims, other-directed identity claims, interior behavioral residue and exterior behavioral residue. The claims are things that she has posted herself about her, and as the name has suggested, are either directed at herself or own group of friends, or are clearly directed at other people. Behavioral residue is evidence of who she is within the space (interior) and outside of the space (exterior) with the space in this case being the facebook environment.

So, on with the analysis. Using the previously mention five factor model, the 5 factors of her personality that I will analyze are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These "big five personality traits" are explained Here.

First I'll look at identity claims. Some self-directed identity claims that are on her profile are things like her hometown in all capital letters, or a nickname for the group she went camping with over fall break. These are things that she posted to remind herself and her friends of who they are, and they show her extraversion (energy in the all caps of HONOLULU!!!) and agreeableness (compassion to the group that went camping with her). The other-directed identity claims that I'll pick out are things like it says she is in a relationship. It is a signal to others that says, "I'm taken", or even "He's mine". Others are her listing of where she works, and her education information, which are listed very formally as claims about her conscientiousness, or the some of the quotes like "we are going sane in a crazy world" hinting at some openness.

The other, easier to find connectors to her environments are the behavioral residue. The residue that is easiest to see is what is presented in her "mini news-feed" and the posts friends have put on her wall. The wall shows an example of her agreeableness in other environments with a post of someone saying, "thank you for hosting this weekend and introducing me to everyone!" or in her openness within the environment with the "spells cast" application where she has cast a "hovering charm" on her boyfriend, making him temporarily float.

Her profile seems to be primarily filled with behavioral residue, and most of that is external. It appears that most of her interaction with environments that are shown in her profile are environments outside of facebook. The impressions she gives using the self- and other-directed identity claims do not come out nearly as strong (to me at least) as does the behavioral residue. My analysis of her, primarily using external behavioral residue is that she is very agreeable and conscientious, which can be learned from the compliments and thanks she receives for things she has done. There are no signs of high neuroticism anywhere except one identity claim, which is hard to tell if it is self-directed or other-directed, but it says, "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger", which on seconds look, could be a more positive outlook and low neuroticism. It is a weaker claim.

Assignment 7.1:: Best Buddies Group on Facebook

According to Social Network Analysis, communities are organized into nodes representing individuals or groups and ties connecting different nodes. On Cornell campus, students participate in numerous clubs with a wide range of interests and goals.

One example is Best Buddies, an international organization that promotes friendship between students and mentally challenged adults. Cornell University chapter has over 20 matched pairs of buddies that communicate and participate in group events such as pot-luck, apple picking and holiday arts and craft party.

According to SNA model, Best Buddies' nodes include college volunteers, mentally challenged adults and their onsite managers, and international organization managers. Parcipants maintain ties with various groups. Student volunteers remain in contact with matched challenged adults, club director and other students. E-board facilitates communications among college members, site managers and regional director.

All members share common interest of community outreach. College students and managers cooperate to raise awareness and have a good time with mentally challenged adults. The level of reciprocity is high, because members share common goal and work together if conflicts arise.

Best buddies college members utilize CMC as the primary method of communication. Email is the most popular choice to make announcements about upcoming events or answer questions. Among e-board members, a club gmail account faciliates updated version of roster and other necessary documents organized. College students also keep in touch with others using facebook. Best Buddies facebook group promotes bonding by allowing members to read each other's profiles and view pictures from previous events. Facebook also allows visualization of strong ties among e-board and active members and weak ties among less active members such as alums.
http://cornell.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2234448571

7: Website Can Bring Alumni of LFHS Together Again

The title says it all. Last year my classmate's father started up the Little Falls alumni network, an online community which he hoped would bring alumni from all around the world back to the Little Falls community through www.lfhsalumni.org The advantages of the network included the ability for alumni to log on, create an account, and fill out a personal profile with contact information as well as current status. The goals of the website are stated on the site, but include such things as facilitating lifelong relationships for members around the world through the online community, keeping an extensive alumni directory for easy contact and access, as well as keeping alumni updated about the current Little Falls community and high school.

The website itself is a great idea and utilizes the may functions of the online world to achieve its goals. Through Social Network Analysis, it is easy for me to identify that the alumni network creates many strong and weak ties throughout the network community. Indeed, as a member, I am able to stay in contact with some of my friends not only through Facebook, but through use of the alumni directory to send emails to other people who do not have Facebook (strong ties). Many of the members are former teachers or employers of mine and even though I no longer keep in contact with them, I could easily use our connection through the network to ask for recommendations or employment opportunities. My weak ties with these people may offer me a greater and more unique variety of resources not available to me through my strong ties.

There is also general information available for all members to see on the website, including news and events that will be occurring within the area. This helps keep all members informed about what is going on back home and offers them a chance to be a part of it. This facilitation of the flow of information is an important effect of the social network. This is also a good example of social capital: access to the social network and resources. In addition, many people have the option to invest in the community through volunteering through the website or making small donations.

The website itself is fairly new and many people are still getting used to the networking options that the website offers. Therefore, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to be able to fully analyze how effective this online community is and whether it will help facilitate a social network which will become useful to all members involved. I have noticed that since I first signed onto the website, there has been a large increase in membership. The willingness of people to become a member on the site shows the desire to connect on some common ground with others within the group. There is a discussion forum, with one topic referring to the connections people made through the alumni network, but there is yet to be any comments written. I attribute this absence to the fact that many alumni who are younger have maintained connections through other social networks such as Facebook, while older alumni may not be fully aware of how to utilize the network. Even though the network is a year old, the goals of the alumni network encompasses the many features of social network analysis and only time will tell if the network reaches its full potential.

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