Chapter 9 of Here Comes Everybody was quite interesting. Some concepts that were discussed related to social groups were: homophily, sparsely connected vs. densely connected groups, social capital, bonding capital and bridging capital to name a few.
One major topic of the chapter is the way people are connected through Small World Networks. This is insightful, but when you think about it, it is logical: large networks are really just sparsely linked groups of more densely linked sub networks. Connections happen in clusters. Bonding capital brings cohesion within a cluster, and bridging captial brings cohesion between clusters. It is kind of like how clusters of stars make up galaxies, and clusters of galaxies make up the universe - only on a different scale.
A related topic was about how Small World Networks function. They provide both amplification and filtering services to their members. They amplify topics and information that would be of interest to their members - spreading the word and deepening discussions. They filter out topics that are not relevant to the group's members simply by not forwarding or adding addtional information to those topics.
Mike,
ReplyDeletethe portion of the book which discussed large networks being made of smaller networks struck me too. Well, of course!—I said to myself. The social dynamics of the web-world really aren't so much different from the rest of the social world—just faster and bigger.
Clay Shirky's new book talks about the fact that small groups rarely stick to their intended topic, but instead stray off on tangents. Oddly, newcomers who talk about the group's advertised subject are shunned for not fitting in (and subsequently form another group, taking a few of the original group with them). The group formation and adjustment dynamic is fascinating to me. Religion formed much the same way over the years, resulting in lots of small pockets of sub-religions as part of a larger group (think catholic and baptist are both Christian).
ReplyDeleteIt seems, as John said, that groups are groups are groups.