The burstiness of social media

I have been thinking about the patterns of activity in my own blog and in my social media behaviour in general.  There are times when a certain topic will attract heaps of traffic and discussion and other times when my blog stats look like they have flat lined.  Over the past two days on Facebook I have been caught up in a couple of examples of bursty activity.  The first was a six degrees of separation group (this one was about wine-buddies).  Where you forward an invitation to friends to join the group. I usually ignore these requests, but the subject was so specific that it didn’t feel like spam when I sent off the requests – certainly those friends that I had shared a good bottle of wine with wouldn’t mind me acknowledging that fact.

The other was a meme (see http://famartinniemi.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/meme-me-up-scottie/).  Memes always peak my interest because I really want to find a way to incorporate meme-behaviour in blog-based interviewing for my research.  It always amazes me how easily people will participate in a meme and how quickly they spread.  The latest one in my Facebook social circle (and beyond by now I am sure) is the “p57 sentence 5 of the nearest book”.  Within just moments of seeing the meme we were all grabbing the nearest book and hoping it wasn’t something too embarrassing to post.  Luckily I am still reading Joe Bennett’s “A Land of Two Halves” in between academic articles.

I think there must be some perfect balance in successful memes between a low threshold of investment/participation with high return of value in the form of information sharing or community building.  Yet another thing to add to my list of things to investigate.  BTW – If you are interested in reading more about bursty behaviour in blogs, Ravi Kumar has written a few nice articles which discuss it.

Kumar, R., Novak , J., Raghavan, P., & Tomkins, A. (2004). Structure and Evolution of Blogspace. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 35-39.

This article reports that blogs constitute a remarkable artifact of the Internet. Most people think of them as Web pages with reverse chronological sequences of dated entries, usually with sidebars of profile information and usually maintained and published with the help of a popular blog authoring tool. They tend to be quirky, highly personal, typically read by repeat visitors and interwoven into a network of tight-knit but active communities.

Kumar, R., Novak, J., Raghavan, P., & Tomkins, A. (2005). On the Bursty Evolution of Blogspace. World Wide Web, 8(2), 159-178.

We propose two new tools to address the evolution of hyperlinked corpora. First, we define time graphs to extend the traditional notion of an evolving directed graph, capturing link creation as a point phenomenon in time. Second, we develop definitions and algorithms for time-dense community tracking, to crystallize the notion of community evolution.

Annotated bibliography – Organisational benefits of blogging

Shortly after blogging hit the mainstream, firms started trying to figure out how to tap into the phenomenon.  The initial foray was through marketing (more on that to come) when firms started reading or lurking around consumer blogs and watching what was said about them.  Then firms tried to give it a go themselves, with limited success, by turning their press releases into PR blogs.  The manipulative tone was the exact opposite of what the blogging community expected and valued.  Now firms are letting employees blogs within varying limits and bringing blogging behind the firewall.  Again, I am not sure firms really get why blogging works, with most organisational blogs being less successful than those on the outside.  Too much focus on the mechanics of blogging and too much control and too little focus on providing employees with the freedom to explore the environment and let it become their own.

This is a long list, so again, I am just including a sentence or two from the abstracts.  Enjoy…

Bar-Ilan, J. (2005). Information hub blogs. Journal of Information Science, 31(4), 297-307.

Blogging has become an important activity on the web; the number of web blogs is growing extremely fast, and thus this phenomenon cannot be ignored. This paper monitors a set of blogs for a two-month period in September-October 2003 and characterizes these blogs based on descriptive statistics and content analysis. We have chosen a set of topic-oriented blogs, i.e. blogs whose purpose is to convey professional information.

Cayzer, S. (2004). Semantic Blogging and Decentralized Knowledge Management. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 47-52.

This article focuses on a system capable of aggregating, annotating, indexing and searching a community’s snippets.

Cox, J. L., Martinez, E. R., & Quinlan, K. B. (2008). Blogs and the corporation: managing the risk, reaping the benefits. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(3).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of blogs in corporate communication and proposes general policies to help corporations effectively and ethically use blogs.

Dearstyne, B. W. (2005). BLOGS The New Information Revolution? Information Management Journal, 39(5), 38-44.

This article discusses the emerging popularity of Weblogs, its categories, and the areas in which records and information management (RIM) managers can influence blog policy.

Ip, R. K. F., & Wagner, C. (2008). Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations. [Article]. Decision Support Systems, 45(2), 242-250.

This article reviews weblogs and their role as a social networking device for young people and its probable evolution to the organizational computing medium.

Kaiser, S., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2008). Leveraging Lead User Knowledge in Software Development – The Case of Weblog Technology. Industry & Innovation, 15(2), 199-221.

Firms increasingly rely upon information technology (IT) to manage organizational knowledge, though this does not inevitably result in increased knowledge sharing.

Kaiser, S., Müller-Seitz, G., Pereira Lopes, M., & Pina E Cunha, M. (2007). Weblog-Technology as a Trigger to Elicit Passion for Knowledge. Organization, 14(3), 391-412.

The practice of Weblogging as a new social and technological phenomenon in society and business is gaining a growing number of supporters.

Miller, R. (2007). Breaker, breaker: Is the blogosphere today’s CB radio? Public Relations Tactics, 14(11), 17-22.

The article offers tips on how a company can protect its brand online in the U.S. Blogging is sometimes disadvantageous to a company’s product because the criticisms made by bloggers can either make or break a company.

Ojala, M. (2005). Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22(4), 269-276.

The article discusses the significant benefits of weblogs as vehicles for knowledge management initiatives.

Pabarskaite, Z. (2003). Decision trees for web log mining. Intelligent Data Analysis, 7(2), 141.

Complex and extensive web sites are becoming more and more popular. Companies need to justify their investments.

Pinnock, S. R. (2005). Organizing virtual environments: National union deployment of the blog and new cyberstrategies. WorkingUSA, 8(4), 457-468.

Over the past decade, the use of information technology (IT) by American unions to enhance organizing initiatives has been slow and uneven.

Richards, J. (2008). Because I need somewhere to vent: The expression of conflict through work blogs. New Technology, Work and Employment, 23(1-2), 95-110.

Employee resistance has traditionally been analysed as an activity that occurs in the work organisation. In recent years, new Internet communication technologies, such as blogs, have expanded the possibilities for employees to express conflict. This paper explores how these developments can add to our understandings of employee resistance to the labour process.

Ringberg, T., & Reihlen, M. (2008). Towards a Socio-Cognitive Approach to Knowledge Transfer. The Journal of Management Studies, 45(5), 912.

We present first a critique of the positivist and social constructionist positions; then we introduce a socio-cognitive model that captures and explicates socio-cognitive processes involved in sense making during knowledge transfer. Finally, we explore future research streams and managerial implications.

Sprague, R. (2007). Business Blogs and Commercial Speech: A New Analytical Framework for the 21st Century. American Business Law Journal, 44(1), 127-159.

The article focuses on the free speech rights in light of the introduction and influence of Internet Web logs, popularly known as blogs that is applied to businesses. The author reflects that substantial part of business-related communications is beginning to occur in blogs, including advertising which the commercial speech doctrine has not subjected to regulation.

Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Neither Hayek nor Habermas. Public Choice, 134(1/2), 87-95.

The rise of the blogosphere raises important questions about the elicitation and aggregation of information, and about democracy itself.

Wagner, C. (2005). Supporting Knowledge Management in Organizations with Conversational Technologies: Discussion Forums, Weblogs, and Wilds. Journal of Database Management, 16(2), 1-1.

The article reviews requirements and tool availability for knowledge management in virtual communities and other knowledge sharing environments, where professionals wish to quickly and easily share knowledge and information.

Ward, R. (2006). Blogs and wikis: A personal journey. Business Information Review, 23(4), 235-240.

Describes the use of social software and social media, incorporating blogs and wikis, to develop websites to support internal communication and collaboration in a law firm.

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: a primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448-483.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate executives of companies are using blogging as a new communications channel.

Xifra, J., & Huertas, A. (2008). Blogging PR: An exploratory analysis of public relations weblogs. Public Relations Review, 34(3), 269-275.

Although there are ever more weblogs on the Internet, this is an area that has been little researched in public relations, and where they have been analyzed it has been as a tool for communication rather than a primary information source in the public relations body of knowledge.

Annotated bibliography – blogging behaviours

The next group of literature I looked at was the psychology-based research on blogging norms and behaviours.  Of all the categories, this is the largest and the focus of many of the CMC and cyber-psychology journals. As I look at the length of the list (26), I am thinking that full abstracts are too much, so I have just put the first sentence or two for each.

These were the most fun articles to read because they really tap into what intrigues me about blogging – why do we do it?  While the subject of most of my posts is on all of my insecurities around getting readers and encouraging readers to comment, I rarely talk about how much fun it is.  Even though I have heaps of other writing to do for my thesis, I really enjoy writing for the blog.  There is something very liberating about the casual style of blogging.  Even though this is a research blog and not my own private diary, it does serve as a catharsis for me – giving me the opportunity to talk about things that are on my mind.  Here is what is on some other researchers’ minds…

Baker, J. R., & Moore, S. M. (2008). Distress, Coping, and Blogging: Comparing New Myspace Users by Their Intention to Blog. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(1), 81-85.

New Myspace.com users ( N = 134, mean age 24.5 years) completed a questionnaire about their intent to blog and several psychosocial variables. Intending bloggers scored higher on psychological distress, self-blame, and venting and scored lower on social integration and satisfaction with number of online and face-to-face friends. Intending bloggers may view this activity as a potential mechanism for coping with distress in situations in which they feel inadequately linked with social supports.

Chu, S.-C., & Kamal, S. (2008). The effect of perceived blogger credibility and argument quality on message elaboration and brand attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8(2), 1-31.

To understand information processing on blogs, this study investigates how perceived blogger trustworthiness affects blog readers’ elaboration of brand-related messages and its interaction effects with argument quality.

Ducate, L. C., & Lomicka, L. L. (2008). Adventures in the blogosphere: from blog readers to blog writers. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 9-28.

This paper reports on a year-long project in which students participated as both readers and writers of blogs. Specifically, this study examines the steps students progress through while reading and writing blogs, students’ reactions to blogging, and how self-expression is characterised in the blogosphere.

Furukawa, T., Matsuzawa, T., Matsuo, Y., Uchiyama, K., & Takeda, M. (2006). Analysis of user relations and reading activity in weblogs. Electronics & Communications in Japan, Part 1: Communications, 89(12), 88-96.

The relationships among weblogs (blogs) can be recognized through bookmarks (favorite blogs linked to from the user’s own blog page), comments, and trackbacks. Such connections between blogs form blog networks, which can be a useful information source in recommending information to the user.

Gillett, J. (2007). Internet Web Logs as Cultural Resistance. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 31(1), 28-43.

This article examines an Internet project — sarsart.org — that features digital artworks created in response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in spring 2003. Qualitative methods including archival research, semiotic analysis, and interviews are used to examine the emergence and substance of this Internet project.

Guadagno, R. E., Okdie, B. M., & Eno, C. A. (2008). Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging. [Article]. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1993-2004.

The Big Five personality inventory measures personality based on five key traits: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.

Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2008). The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(1), 60-68.

The phenomenon and practice of blogging offers a rich environment from which to look at the psychology of the Internet. By using blogging as a lens, researchers can see that many predictions and findings of early Internet research on social and psychological features of computer-mediated communication have held true, whereas others are not as true, and that the psychology of the Internet is very much a sense of the one and the many, the individual and the collective, the personal and the political.

Harp, D., & Tremayne, M. (2006). The gendered blogosphere: Examining inequality using network and feminist theory. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(2), 247-264.

This study examined gender inequity among the most-read political blogs on the Web. Sampling over one year from blog rankings, we found that 10% of the top bloggers were women. Discourse analysis of bloggers’ explanations for gender disparity revealed three dominant beliefs: women do not blog about politics, women’s blogs lack quality, and top bloggers do not link to women’s sites. We use network and feminist theory to explore these claims and offer suggestions for increasing the representation of female voices in the political Blogosphere.

Herring, S. C., Kouper, I., Scheidt, L. A., & Wright, E. L. (2004). Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children_pf.html

Weblogs (“blogs”), frequently modified webpages containing individual entries displayed in reverse chronological sequence, are the latest mode of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to attain widespread popularity.

Herring, S. C., & Paolillo, J. C. (2006). Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 439-459.

A relationship among language, gender, and discourse genre has previously been observed in informal, spoken interaction and formal, written texts.

Hsu, C.-L., & Lin, J. C.-C. (2008). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information & Management, 45(1), 65-74.

Recently, there has been a dramatic proliferation in the number of blogs; however, little is published about what motivates people to participate in blog activities.

Huang, C.-Y., Shen, Y.-Z., Lin, H.-X., & Chang, S.-S. (2007). Bloggers’ Motivations and Behaviors: A Model. Journal of Advertising Research, 47(4), 472-484.

During the past few years, there has been an exponential growth of blogs, and behind these blogs are numerous bloggers who create and manage them. It is widely expected that bloggers armed with their own blogs will make a tremendous impact on both mass communication media and marketers who rely on such media. However, given the widespread use of blogs, there has been little systematic analysis of the factors behind blogging activities. To serve as a stepping-stone, this article presents a model that addresses the relationships among blogging motivations and behaviors, and reports the empirical validation of the model.

Huang, L.-S., Chou, Y.-J., & Lin, C.-H. (2008). The Influence of Reading Motives on the Responses after Reading Blogs. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(3), 351-355.

As the number of blogs increases dramatically, these online forums have become important media people use to share feelings and information. Previous research of blogs focuses on writers (i.e., bloggers), but the influence of blogs also requires investigations from readers’ perspectives.

Jung, T., Youn, H., & McClung, S. (2007). Motivations and Self-Presentation Strategies on Korean-Based “Cyworld” Weblog Format Personal Homepages. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 24-31.

The main purposes of this study are to find out individuals’ motives and interpersonal self-presentation strategies on constructing Korean weblog format personal homepage (e.g., “Cyworld mini-homepage”). The study also attempts to find predictor motives that lead to the activities of posting and maintaining a homepage and compare the self-presentation strategies used on the Web with those commonly used in interpersonal situations.

Kaiser, S., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2008). Leveraging Lead User Knowledge in Software Development – The Case of Weblog Technology. Industry & Innovation, 15(2), 199-221.

Firms increasingly rely upon information technology (IT) to manage organizational knowledge, though this does not inevitably result in increased knowledge sharing.

Kuhn, M. (2007). Interactivity and Prioritizing the Human: A Code of Blogging Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 18-36.

The increasing popularity of blogs and blogging, as well as their integration into the mainstream media mix, has sparked an ongoing discussion of whether a code of blog ethics is necessary or even feasible. In this article, I draw upon new communication technology ethics scholarship and an exploratory survey of bloggers to propose such a code. This code, unlike previous proposals, recognizes interactivity and the importance of prioritizing the human element in computer-mediated communication as the core values in blogging ethics.

Lee, D.-H., Im, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2008). Voluntary self-disclosure of information on the Internet: A multimethod study of the motivations and consequences of disclosing information on blogs. Psychology and Marketing, 25(7), 692-710.

As marketing paradigms have shifted toward the need to build a relationship with consumers, marketers need to facilitate two-way communications in order to better understand them.

McCullagh, K. (2008). Blogging: self presentation and privacy. Information & Communications Technology Law, 17(1), 3-23.

Blogs are permeating most niches of social life, and addressing a wide range of topics from scholarly and political issues1 to family and children’s daily lives.

Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., & Swartz, L. (2004). Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 41-46.

This article reports that blogging is sometimes viewed as a new, grassroots form of journalism and a way to shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional party politics.

Pabarskaite, Z. (2003). Decision trees for web log mining. Intelligent Data Analysis, 7(2), 141.

The investigation proposes decision trees for web user behaviour analysis. This includes prediction of user future actions and the typical pages leading to browsing termination.

Perlmutter, D. D., & Schoen, M. (2007). “If I Break a Rule, What Do I Do, Fire Myself?” Ethics Codes of Independent Blogs. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 37-48.

As the latest tool for disseminated information and editorial comment shaping public opinion, blogging is quickly gaining popularity, prominence, and power. One major controversy for the new medium of circulating news and commentary is to what extent or even whether blogs should have codes of ethics.

Riva, G. (2002). The Sociocognitive Psychology of Computer-Mediated Communication: The Present and Future of Technology-Based Interactions. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 5(6), 581-598.

The increased diffusion of the Internet has made computer-mediated communication (CMC) very popular. However, a difficult question arises for psychologists and communication researchers: “What are the communicative characteristics of CMC?”

Stefanone, M. A., & Jang, C.-Y. (2007). Writing for Friends and Family: The Interpersonal Nature of Blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 123-140.

This research explores variables related to the use of personal-journal style blogs for interpersonal goals. A random sample of bloggers completed surveys exploring how the combination of extraversion and self-disclosure affect strong tie network size, which in turn serves as motivation to use blogs as an alternative communication channel.

Trammell, K. D., & Keshelashvili, A. (2005). Examining the new influencers: A self-presentation study of a-list blogs. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 968-982.

This study investigated impression management tactics and self-presentation on popular A-list blogs. Building on Goffman’s constructs of self-presentation and operationalizing impression management strategies, this study content analyzed the most-linked-to blogs.

Wei, C. (2004). Formation of Norms in a Blog Community. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms_pf.html

This paper reports on a study of a community of blogs devoted to knitting and compares the community’s stated normative guidelines with actual practice.

Zuckerman, E. (2008). Meet the bridgebloggers. Public Choice, 134(1/2), 47-65.

As the blogosphere has expanded outside its original US context, it has changed from an extended community in which everyone shares a roughly similar set of suppositions and languages to a set of separate blogospheres characterized by different cultures and languages.

Annotated bibliography – web 2.0 blogging literature

It is so typical that half way through my literature review and I have changed the way I am organising my thoughts on blogging.  Part of the change of heart was the realisation that I really (really!) needed to focus my research questions on my Masters thesis instead of the PhD that I hope to start working on next year.  So here is my new structure, 7 categories with the first centring on articles about the “newness” factor of blogging and web 2.0 as mechanism for collaboration and communication.

Adams, S. A. (2008). Blog-based applications and health information: Two case studies that illustrate important questions for Consumer Health Informatics (CHI) research. International Journal of Medical Informatics, In Press, Corrected Proof.

Weblogs (blogs), together with podcasts and wikis are part of the larger body of next-generation communication applications dubbed “web 2.0.” Within the specific area of health care, little attention has been devoted to understanding what applications are available to the lay public and how these are being used. In this study, a literature review on blogs and blogging practices was conducted, followed by case study analyses of two separate sites that use blogging tools to help patients and other lay web end-users record health-related experiences. This paper explores the diverse purposes for which blogging applications can be (or are being) used in relation to health and introduces the idea of “health goal-oriented” blogging. The discussion focuses on relevant informatics questions that arise with respect to the use of blogs and makes suggestions for subsequent research.

Blood, R. (2000). Weblogs: A History and Perspective. Journal. Retrieved from http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of “other sites like his” as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse’s ‘page of only weblogs’ lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999. Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs on Cameron’s list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it ‘wee-blog’ and inevitably this was shortened to ‘blog’ with the weblog editor referred to as a ‘blogger.’

Cohen, E., & Krishnamurthy, B. (2006). A short walk in the Blogistan. Computer Networks, 50(5), 615-630.

The increasingly prominent new subset of Web pages, called blogs differs from traditional Web pages both in characteristics and potential to applications. We explore three aspects of the blogistan: its overall scope and size, identification of emerging hot topics of discussion and link patterns, and implications both to blogs and applications such as search. Beyond blogs, we develop a general methodology of mining evolving networks and connections. The first part of our study is longitudinal–based on a five-week continuous fetch of a seed collection of nearly 10,000 blog URLs. The second part is based on a successive crawl of pages suspected to be blogs leading to a larger collection of several million URLs. The collection is examined for a variety of properties. We characterize blogs and study different facets of the link structure in blogs and its evolution over time, attributes of servers and domains that host many of the blogs including their IP addresses, and how blogs behave with respect to various HTTP/1.1 protocol issues. Inferences from our in-depth exploration are relevant to applications ranging from mining to hosting of blogs and other issues of relevance to the measurement community.

Dearstyne, B. W. (2007). Blogs, Mashups, & Wikis Oh, My! Information Management Journal, 41(4), 24-33.

This article focuses on Web 2.0, which refers to the perceived new generation of Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users, and explains its relevance to records and information management (RIM) professionals. It says that Web 2.0 is changing the way people work and the way records and documents are created, exchanged and used and this trend poses new challenges for RIM professionals. Examples of Web 2.0 services include MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Second Life.

Gurak, L. J., Antonijevic, S., Johnson, L., Ratliff, C., & Reyman, J. (2004). Introduction: Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html

During the past two decades, we have witnessed the introduction of many new digital spaces for writing and communicating, from hypertext, to chat rooms, to newsgroups, to discussion boards, to MOOS and MUDs, to wikis, to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. The proliferation of new spaces for communicating via the Internet has evoked scholarship in the fields of communication, rhetoric, composition, and writing studies from researchers seeking to address the social, rhetorical, and discursive implications. Recently, there has emerged a new object for study of great rhetorical impact: the weblog. The scholarly exploration of weblogs is still new, having up to this point taken place at primarily at conferences.

Secker, J., & Price, G. (2007). Libraries, social software and distance learners: blog it, tag it, share it! New Review of Information Networking, 39-52.

This paper describes a recent project funded by the University of London to explore how social software or Web 2.0 technologies can enhance the use of libraries by distance learners. LASSIE (Libraries And Social Software In Education) involves a team of librarians, learning technologists and archivists. The project first conducted an extensive literature review, which is available online. The literature review provides an overview of key social software and explores the current implementation of these tools by libraries. It also considers the key issues in supporting distance learners’ use of libraries and whether social software might provide solutions. The literature review was followed by several case studies to explore specific types of social software in practice. These included the use of social bookmarking for sharing resources, social software and online reading lists, blogging in the library community, the use of social networking sites and podcasting for information literacy support. LASSIE will be completed in December 2007 and a final report with results from the case studies and an updated literature review will be made available from the project website. One of the successes of the project has been to establish a project blog, which provides the project team with an opportunity to reflect on progress, but also to gather opinions from others in the field.

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: a primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448-483.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate executives of companies are using blogging as a new communications channel. The paper presents an overview of the blogging phenomenon, placing it in context of the larger growth of Web 2.0 and user-generated content. The paper provides the reader with a primer on blogs and how they can be used effectively by executives, as well as looking at the importance of monitoring the blogosphere for what is being said by and about a company. Over 50 corporate CEOs were found who are presently engaged in blogging. The research also identifies companies where employees have been fired for blogging and presents best practices in blogging and blog policies. The principal limitation of the research is that as blogging is a rapidly growing and evolving area, the present results on executive blogging are accurate only for the moment. The implications of this research are that it provides the foundation for surveying not only the status of blogging by managers but also an agenda for blogging research, which might examine blogging behaviours, develop blog metrics and look toward the return on investment of blogging. The paper reveals the benefits of managerial blogging for both the company and the individual. It also examines issues concerned with human resources, financial disclosure and policy development that have arisen because of the rise of blogging within companies. The paper represents a timely review of a rapidly evolving social network and its associated communications technology, providing both management practitioners and academicians with insights into managing in a new age.

Annotated Bibliography C to D

Yikes – I haven’t kept up on my promise to annotate my bibliography.  Here are another couple of letters.

Chopin, K. (2008). Finding communities: alternative viewpoints through weblogs and tagging. Journal of Documentation, 64(4), 552.

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss and test the claim that user-based tagging allows for access to a wider variety of viewpoints than is found using other forms of online searching. Design/methodology/approach – A general overview of the nature of weblogs and user-based tagging is given, along with other relevant concepts. A case is then analyzed where viewpoints towards a specific issue are searched for using both tag searching (Technorati) and general search engine searching (Google and Google Blog Search). Findings – The claim to greater accessibility through user-based tagging is not overtly supported with these experiments. Further results for both general and tag-specific searching goes against some common assumptions about the types of content found on weblogs as opposed to more general web sites. Research limitations/implications – User-based tagging is still not widespread enough to give conclusive data for analysis. As this changes, further research in this area, using a variety of search subjects, is warranted. Originality/value – Although proponents of user-based tagging attribute many qualities to the practice, these qualities have not been properly documented or demonstrated. This paper partially rectifies this gap by testing one of the claims made, that of accessibility to alternate views, thus adding to the discussion on tagging for both researchers and other interested parties.

NOTE: Good basic article on blogging and includes tagging which is hard to find in the literature.

Cox, J. L., Martinez, E. R., & Quinlan, K. B. (2008). Blogs and the corporation: managing the risk, reaping the benefits. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(3).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of blogs in corporate communication and proposes general policies to help corporations effectively and ethically use blogs. Blogs are among the new communication media that are playing an increasingly important role in the corporate world. Most companies, however, are not yet taking advantage of this opportunity, nor do they manage the associated risks. We have developed a series of best practices to help companies address this issue. We examine the evolution of the blogging phenomena and create a framework for characterizing the potential impact of blogs on the corporation. Policies are derived from data compiled from the literature, case studies, and existing proactive corporate strategies. Most companies do not have well developed strategies for corporate blogging. As a communication medium, blogs represent a significant opportunity to further corporate marketing goals, particularly in light of the changing face of information consumption. The prevalence of blogs poses risk to corporations as a relatively uncontrolled medium. This paper illustrates the need to develop proactive strategies for corporate blogging and provides guidelines for corporate blogging policies. Companies should integrate blogging policies into their overall corporate communication strategy as well as develop an approach for addressing the risks they impose. This is the first paper to consider both the benefits and risks of blogging from a policy point of view.

NOTE: Didn’t get much out of this, but I may re-read it later.  It is a little off topic for me, but there are so few articles on blogging and management, I feel like I have to read them all.

Dearstyne, B. W. (2007). Blogs, Mashups, & Wikis Oh, My! Information Management Journal, 41(4), 24-33.

This article focuses on Web 2.0, which refers to the perceived new generation of Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users, and explains its relevance to records and information management (RIM) professionals. It says that Web 2.0 is changing the way people work and the way records and documents are created, exchanged and used and this trend poses new challenges for RIM professionals. Examples of Web 2.0 services include MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Second Life.

NOTE: Not much on blogging, just a bit on “the gatherers” and tying it to web 2.0 as a collaborative activity – I’ll need to think on that at bit more, I am not sure I get it/agree.

Dingwall, R. (1997). Accounts, Interviews and Observations. In G. Miller & R. Dingwall (Eds.), Context and method in qualitative research (pp. 51-65). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Providing a critical examination of the principles and practice of qualitative research and the interplay between context and method, Context & Method in Qualitative Research addresses methodological and practical issues central to the concerns of qualitative researchers: The validity and credibility of qualitative methods The problems encountered using specific techniques in a range of social settings The discussion of moral issues raised in qualitative research Leading international researchers from North America, the United Kingdom, and France focus on the thoughtful, project-like character of high-quality qualitative research. They reflect on their experiences and on the methods and strategies they have used to study everyday life, also making practical suggestions to readers on why and how they conducted their own studies. These all-star contributors go beyond cookbook-like discussions on subjects such as how to enter social settings, manage ones research subjects, and ask good questions while formulating research strategies. Context & Method in Qualitative Research is a coherent, wide-ranging, and practical collection that will be an invaluable resource for both the experienced and beginning researcher, practitioner, and student of qualitative research.

NOTE: I just used this for reference on qualitative methods.

eTribal Business Seminar

I went to a very interesting seminar by Associate Professor Robert Kozinets of University of York in Toronto.  He spoke on the online community revolution and its implications for management and marketing scholars or as he calls it, eTribalism.  Even though I am not a marketing researcher, I was intrigued by the changes that organisations face when communicating with their customers.  I think there is probably a logical extension to how firms interact with their employees as well.  Employees, like customers, will be part of many eTribes (social, hobby, and professional).  Organisations will probably need to rethink the employer-employee relationship, just as they are changing their marketing models and strategies to adapt to changing customer experiences and behaviours.

Some of the concepts Rob discussed, included the notion of online communities being gift economies instead of value extraction economies.  This must drive the behaviours and motivations of those who participate in these communities – something worth researching further.  He also gave a definition for an online community – one in which participants register and return with some level of frequency – which I have been struggling with for some time.  Rob mentioned a several resources, which I’ll look into over the next couple of weeks.  Here are the few that I have added to my bibliography.

Cova, B., Kozinets, R., & Shankar, A. (2007). Consumer tribes. Amsterdam; London: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Marketing and consumer research has traditionally conceptualized consumers as individuals- who exercise choice in the marketplace as individuals not as a class or a group. However an important new perspective is now emerging that rejects the individualistic view and focuses on the reality that human life is essentially social, and that who we are is an inherently social phenomenon. It is the tribes, the many little groups we belong to, that are fundamental to our experience of life. Tribal Marketing shows that it is not individual consumption of products that defines our lives but rather that this activity actually facilitates meaningful social relationships. The social links (social relationships) are more important than the things (brands etc.) The aim of this book is therefore to offer a systematic overview of the area that has been defined as cultures of consumption- consumption microcultures, brand cultures, brand tribes, and brand communities. It is though these that students of marketing and marketing practitioners can begin to genuinely understand the real drivers of consumer behaviour. It will be essential to everyone who needs to understand the new paradigm in consumer research, brand management and communications management.

Lévy, P. (1997). Collective intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace. New York: Plenum Trade.

The number of travelers along the information superhighway is increasing at a rate of ten percent a month. How will this communications revolution affect our culture and society? Though awed by their potential, we’ve feared computers as agents of the further alienation of modern man: they take away our jobs, minimize direct human contact, even shake our faith in the unique power of the human brain. Pierre Levy believes, however, that rather than creating a society where machines rule man, the technology of cyberspace will have a humanizing influence on us, and foster the emergence of a “collective intelligence” – a meeting of minds on the Internet – that will validate the contributions of the individual.

Brooks, D. (2001). Bobos in paradise: the new upper class and how they got there. London: Simon & Schuster.

Do you believe that spending $15,000 on a media center is vulgar, but that spending $15,000 on a slate shower stall is a sign that you are at one with the Zenlike rhythms of nature? Do you work for one of those visionary software companies where people come to work wearing hiking boots and glacier glasses, as if a wall of ice were about to come sliding through the parking lot? If so, you might be a Bobo. In his bestselling work of “comic sociology,” David Brooks coins a new word,Bobo,to describe today’s upper class — those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, Brooks has defined a new generation.

Maffesoli, M. (1996). The time of the tribes : the decline of individualism in mass society. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Do individuals construct their own identities in contemporary consumer culture? In this volume, one of the world’s leading sociologists questions the idea that individualism is a defining feature of modernity. The Time of Tribes presents a new, truly sociological theory of modern identity. Author Michel Maffesoli contends that the insistence on the end of collective ideals conceals a complex state of affairs. He brilliantly demonstrates that while the old determinants of identity such as class have indeed faded, there are new tribal determinants. He shows how contemporary identities are now composed of a multiplicity of experiences, representations, and everyday emotions. Sexual, political, or professional identities are being replaced by processes of identification with groups, with sentiments, and with fashions. He shows how tribal groupings–musical, sporting, or touristic–emerge in the midst of mass society and goes on to explore the possible reasons for this new social dynamic from the rise of new communication technologies to the resurgence of older values such as religious identification. This unique book is essential reading for advanced students in social theory, culture studies, and sociology.

Annotated Bibliography A to B

I have two concurrent post topics at the moment, the meme series and now this on blogging research references.  I’ll use titles and tags to keep them separate, but I am guessing that both will take me awhile to get through, so be patient.  Soon I’ll return to my decidedly non-thematic approach.

Asllani, A., Ettkin, L. P., & Ashvini, S. (2008). Sharing knowledge with conversational technologies: web logs versus discussion boards. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 217-230.

The article compares web logs or blogs to discussion boards as two alternative conversational technologies in the process of knowledge sharing and retention. In order to efficiently manage such a resource, organisations are using information technology to acquire, store and communicate data, information and knowledge. The results of an experimental study show that blogs are more successful technologies when used to communicate tacit knowledge and when they are intended for a general audience. Discussion boards can be used more efficiently to communicate specific, explicit knowledge to a specialised audience.

NOTE:  I have not been able to get a copy of this article yet, it is still embargoed from our uni library.

Bell, A., Crothers, C., Goodwin, I., Kripalani, K., Sherman, K., & Smith, P. (2007). World Internet Project: The Internet in New Zealand 2007 Final Report. Auckland: Institute of Culture Discourse & Communication (ICDC).

From 2007, the Institute of Culture Discourse & Communication (ICDC) is conducting a long-term survey to track trends in internet use and to document the role and impact of the Internet in New Zealand society.  The Internet has changed how business and trade deals are made; how schools and other academic institutions, councils, media and advertisers operate. The Internet also impacts on family interaction, the ways in which people form new friendships, and the communities to which people belong.  The World Internet Project New Zealand (WIP NZ) is an extensive research project which aims to provide important information about the social, cultural, political and economic influence of the Internet and related digital technologies.  ICDC’s longitudinal survey includes a cross-section of participants aged 12 and up across New Zealand. A quota ensures that people of Māori, Pasifika and Asian descent and the range of age-groups are not under-represented.  The survey investigates Internet access and targets Internet users as well as non-users; who uses this technology and what they do online. It also considers off-line activities such as how much time is spent with friends and family. Other questions address issues such as the effects of the Internet on language use and cultural development; the role of the Internet in accessing information or purchasing products; and how the Internet affects the educational and social development of New Zealand children.  In addition to studying the impact of the Internet, the survey tracks the effectiveness of strategies to address issues such as the digital divide between rich and poor; urban and rural.

NOTE:  Nice statistical information for those of us doing research in NZ.  I also use the Pew Internet & American Life Project data and plan to modify the blogging-related questions for my research.

Bell, D. (2001). An introduction to cybercultures. London; New York: Routledge.

An Introduction to Cybercultures provides an accessible guide to the major forms, practices and meanings of this rapidly growing field. From the evolution of hardware and software to the emergence of cyberpunk, film and fiction, David Bell introduces readers to the key aspects of cyberculture, including email, the internet, digital imaging tecnologies, computer games and digital special effects. Each chapter contains ‘hot links’ to key articles in its companion volume, The Cybercultures Reader, suggestions for further reading, and details of relevant websites. Individual chapters examine: * Cybercultures: An Introduction * Storying Cyberspace * Cultural Studies in Cyberspace * Community and Cyberculture * Identities in Cyberculture * Bodies in Cyberculture * Cyber Subcultures * Researching Cybercultures

NOTE:  Good CMC background – but pre-blog era

Bjerke, B. (2007). Face-to-face Research: Interviews, Conversations and Dialogs. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation: Research methods in the social sciences (pp. 225-242). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Swedish scholars introduce quantitative and qualitative research methods in the social sciences not in a general approach describing the various features or process, but as specific examples from their own fields of management, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. They emphasize fitting the research method to the particular question it is being asked to answer, and the particular conditions in which it must function.

NOTE:  A good primer on history, motivation for using, and mechanics of interviewing.  I used this to understand how blog-based “interviewing” might work as a research method.

Blanchard, A. (2004). Blogs as Virtual Communities: Identifying a Sense of Community in the Julie/Julia Project. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogs_as_virtual.html

Researchers, practitioners, and the media have used the term virtual community to refer to vastly different computer-mediated communication (CMC) groups. EBay, a soap opera newsgroup, The WELL, a website for wristwatch enthusiasts, and more have all been referred to as virtual communities (Baym, 1995; Boyd, 2002; Rheingold, 1993; Rothaermel & Sugiyama, 2001). Should blogs be considered virtual communities, too?  To answer this question, we must understand, first, why virtual communities are considered important, and, second, what the characteristics of a virtual community are. Then, we must determine if at least some blogs have these characteristics.

NOTE:  Good companion to the heaps of sources on pre-blog CMC.  Gives basic information about how blog-based research works and a case study.

Boden, D., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1991). Structure-in-Action: An Introduction. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (pp. 3-21). Berkeley University of California Press.

Talk is at the heart of everyday existence, yet social scientists have traditionally treated it as peripheral to human affairs and social structure. This collection of original essays offers a new and different perspective that sees talk as the fundamental framework of social interaction and social institutions.

NOTE:  One of many ethnography books I used to get up to speed on the qualitative research methodology.  I didn’t heavily cite this one, but just skimmed it for background and history.

Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Aldershot: Heinemann Educational Books.

The authors argue in this book that social theory can usefully be conceived in terms of four broad paradigms, based upon different sets of meta-theoretical assumptions with regard to the nature of social science and the nature of society. The four paradigms – Functionalist, Interpretive, Radical Humanist and Radical Structuralist – derive from quite distinct intellectual traditions, and present four mutually exclusive views of the social work. Each stands in its own right, and generates its own distinctive approach to the analysis of social life.  The authors provide extensive reviews of the four paradigms, tracing the evolution and inter-relationships between the various sociological schools of thought within each. They then proceed to relate theories of organisation to this wider background.  This book covers a great range of intellectual territory. It makes a number of important contributions to our understanding of sociology and organisational analysis, and will prove an invaluable guide to theorists, researchers and students in a variety of social science disciplines. It stands as a discourse in social theory, drawing upon the general area of organisation studies – industrial sociology, organisation theory, organisational psychology, and industrial relations – as a means of illustrating more general sociological themes. In addition to reviewing and evaluating existing work, it provides a framework for appraising future developments in the area of organisational analysis, and suggests the form which some of these developments are likely to take.

NOTE:  I have used this book in several papers I have taken.  It provides a very helpful reference frame for the research paradigms.  I use to give context to the blog-based methods based on the interpretive paradigm.  I use it enough that I am considering buying it.

Bibliography for blog-based research

I just joined the Association of Internet Researchers wiki and have been reading through some of the member blogs.  There is a London School of Economics postgrad research blog that has been very interesting and informative.  In particular they posted a bibliography of blogging references which has motivated me to do the same.  This is an abridge bibliography of books and articles I have read (ok – some I just skimmed) on blogging, CMC, and ethnographic research in order to do my own blog-based research in Knowledge Management.

Asllani, A., Ettkin, L. P., & Ashvini, S. (2008). Sharing knowledge with conversational technologies: web logs versus discussion boards. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 217-230.

Bell, A., Crothers, C., Goodwin, I., Kripalani, K., Sherman, K., & Smith, P. (2007). World Internet Project: The Internet in New Zealand 2007 Final Report. Auckland: Institute of Culture Discourse & Communication (ICDC).

Bell, D. (2001). An introduction to cybercultures. London; New York: Routledge.

Bjerke, B. (2007). Face-to-face Research: Interviews, Conversations and Dialogs. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation: Research methods in the social sciences (pp. 225-242). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Blanchard, A. (2004). Blogs as Virtual Communities: Identifying a Sense of Community in the Julie/Julia Project. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogs_as_virtual.html

Boden, D., & Zimmerman, D. H. (1991). Structure-in-Action: An Introduction. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (pp. 3-21). Berkeley University of California Press.

Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis: Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Aldershot: Heinemann Educational Books.

Chopin, K. (2008). Finding communities: alternative viewpoints through weblogs and tagging. Journal of Documentation, 64(4), 552.

Cox, J. L., Martinez, E. R., & Quinlan, K. B. (2008). Blogs and the corporation: managing the risk, reaping the benefits. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(3).

Dearstyne, B. W. (2007). Blogs, Mashups, & Wikis Oh, My! Information Management Journal, 41(4), 24-33.

Dingwall, R. (1997). Accounts, Interviews and Observations. In G. Miller & R. Dingwall (Eds.), Context and method in qualitative research (pp. 51-65). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Fielding, N., Lee, R. M., & Blank, G. (2008). The SAGE handbook of online research methods. Los Angeles; London: SAGE.

Fontana, A. (2003). Postmodern trends in interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Postmodern interviewing (pp. 51-65). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.

Garfinkel, H. (1996). Ethnomethodology’s Program. Social Psychology Quarterly, 59(1), 5.

Garsten, C. (2007). Ethnography. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation : research methods in the social sciences (pp. 147-165). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Goetz Boué, C. (2008). Don’t say web 2.0, say intranet 2.0. KM Review, 11(1), 14-17.

Guadagno, R. E., Okdie, B. M., & Eno, C. A. (2008). Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging. [Article]. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1993-2004.

Gummesson, E. (2000). Qualitative methods in management research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.

Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2008). The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(1), 60-68.

Gurak, L. J., Antonijevic, S., Johnson, L., Ratliff, C., & Reyman, J. (2004). Introduction: Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/introduction.html

Herring, S. C., Kouper, I., Scheidt, L. A., & Wright, E. L. (2004). Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children_pf.html

Herring, S. C., & Paolillo, J. C. (2006). Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 439-459.

Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2008). Handbook of emergent methods. New York; London: Guilford Press.

Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: SAGE.

Hine, C. (2005). Virtual methods: Issues in social research on the Internet. Oxford; New York: Berg.

Hsu, C.-L., & Lin, J. C.-C. (2008). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information & Management, 45(1), 65-74.

Huang, L.-S., Chou, Y.-J., & Lin, C.-H. (2008). The Influence of Reading Motives on the Responses after Reading Blogs. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(3), 351-355.

Ip, R. K. F., & Wagner, C. (2008). Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations. [Article]. Decision Support Systems, 45(2), 242-250.

Jaekyung, K., Sang-Heui, L., & Min Suk, S. (2008). Current usage of organisational blogs in the public sector. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 201-216.

Johns, M. D., Chen, S. L., & Hall, G. J. (2004). Online social research: Methods, issues & ethics. New York: Peter Lang.

Jung, T., Youn, H., & McClung, S. (2007). Motivations and Self-Presentation Strategies on Korean-Based “Cyworld” Weblog Format Personal Homepages. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 24-31.

Kaiser, S., Müller-Seitz, G., Pereira Lopes, M., & Pina E Cunha, M. (2007). Weblog-Technology as a Trigger to Elicit Passion for Knowledge. Organization, 14(3), 391-412.

Kazmer, M. M., & Xie, B. (2008). QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWING IN INTERNET STUDIES: Playing with the media, playing with the method. Information, Communication & Society, 11(2), 257 – 278.

Keen, A. (2007). The cult of the amateur : how today’s internet is killing our culture (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday.

Kline, D., & Burstein, D. (2005). Blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture. New York: CDS Books.

Kvale, S. (1996). Interviews: an introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Lai, L. S. L., & Turban, E. (2008). Groups Formation and Operations in the Web 2.0 Environment and Social Networks. Group Decision & Negotiation, 17(5), 387-402.

Lee, D.-H., Im, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2008). Voluntary self-disclosure of information on the Internet: A multimethod study of the motivations and consequences of disclosing information on blogs. Psychology and Marketing, 25(7), 692-710.

Lee-Ellen, M. (1995). Spoof, Spam, Lurk, and Lag: the Aesthetics of Text-based Virtual Realities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 1(2), 0-0.

Lenhart, A., & Fox, S. (2006). Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2000). Internet communication and qualitative research: a handbook for researching online. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Mann, C., & Stewart, F. (2003). Internet Interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Postmodern interviewing (pp. 81-105). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Markham, A. N. (1998). Life online: Researching real experience in virtual space. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Miller, D., & Slater, D. (2000). The Internet : an ethnographic approach. Oxford; New York: Berg.

Miller, G. (1997). Introduction: Context and method in qualitative research. In G. Miller & R. Dingwall (Eds.), Context and method in qualitative research (pp. 1-11). London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., & Swartz, L. (2004). Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 41-46.

Ödman, P.-J. (2007). Hermeneutics in Research Practices. In B. Gustavsson (Ed.), The principles of knowledge creation : research methods in the social sciences (pp. 113-130). Cheltenham, U.K.; Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar.

Ojala, M. (2005). Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22(4), 269-276.

Olson, D. L. (2008). Ethical aspects of web log data mining. International Journal of Information Technology & Management, 7(2), 190-200.

Payne, J. (2008). Using wikis and blogs to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing. Strategic HR Review, 7(3), 5-12.

Rasmussen, T. (2000). Social theory and communication technology. Aldershot Ashgate.

Riva, G. (2002). The Sociocognitive Psychology of Computer-Mediated Communication: The Present and Future of Technology-Based Interactions. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 5(6), 581-598.

Rodzvilla, J. (2002). We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Stefanone, M. A., & Jang, C.-Y. (2007). Writing for Friends and Family: The Interpersonal Nature of Blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 123-140.

Swain, D. E. (2007). Can blogging be used to improve medication error collection as part of health informatics knowledge management? In S. Hawamdeh (Ed.), Creating collaborative advantage through knowledge and innovation (Vol. 5, pp. 301-313). Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific.

Tidwell, L. C., & Walther, J. B. (2002). Computer-Mediated Communication Effects on Disclosure, Impressions, and Interpersonal Evaluations: Getting to Know One Another a Bit at a Time. Human Communication Research, 28(3), 317-348.

Trammell, K. D., & Keshelashvili, A. (2005). EXAMINING THE NEW INFLUENCERS: A SELF-PRESENTATION STUDY OF A-LIST BLOGS. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 968-982.

Tremayne, M. (2007). Blogging, citizenship, and the future of media. New York; London Routledge.

Ward, R. (2006). Blogs and wikis: A personal journey. Business Information Review, 23(4), 235-240.

Wei, C. (2004). Formation of Norms in a Blog Community. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms_pf.html

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: a primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448-483.

Xarchos, C., & Charland, M. B. (2008). Innovapost uses Web 2.0 tools to engage its employees. Strategic HR Review, 7(3), 13-18.

Zhang, W., & Watts, S. (2008). Online communities as communities of practice: a case study. Journal of Knowledge Management, 12(4), 55.