Latent Groups in Online Communities: a Longitudinal Study in Wikipedia
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2018

Research on online communities has shown that content production involves manifest groups and latent users. This paper conceptualizes a related but distinct phenomenon of latent groups. We ground this contribution in a longitudinal study on the Finnish Wikipedia (2007–2014). In the case of experts working on content within their area of expertise, individuals can constitute a group that maintains itself over time. In such a setting, it becomes viable to view the group as an acting unit instead of as individual nodes in a network. Such groups are able to sustain their activities even over periods of inactivity. Our theoretical contribution is the conceptualization of latent groups, which includes two conditions: 1) a group is capable of reforming after inactivity (i.e., dormant), and 2) a group is difficult to observe to an outsider (i.e., non-manifest).

Latent group

Latency

Longitudinal

Online community

Wikipedia

Författare

Arto Lanamäki

Oulun Yliopisto

Juho Lindman

Göteborgs universitet

Computer Supported Cooperative Work

0925-9724 (ISSN) 1573-7551 (eISSN)

Vol. 27 1 77-106

Ämneskategorier

Medievetenskap

Mänsklig interaktion med IKT

Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap

DOI

10.1007/s10606-017-9295-8

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2021-09-03