Characterizing Communication Networks Associated with Political Hashtags.

Among the diverse forms of communication and information networks found in the Web 2.0 environment, “social” and “informational” communication networks have been characterized in terms of their network metrics. Although Twitter is partly based on relationships between actors, activity has been shown to reflect characteristics of information networks. This study examines activity in Twitter within spaces defined by hashtags on political topics. We gathered our own data on a hashtag associated with the 2012 Hawaii senatorial race and compared our results to those from other political hashtag networks, and to typical social and information networks as well as random graphs. Results show that hashtag-centered reply and retweet networks in this domain do not fall clearly into the social or informational categories. There appears to be a third kind of network associated with political debate. More generally, it may be productive to conceive of communication networks in terms of multidimensional characteristics rather than categories

Analytic frameworks for assessing dialogic argumentation in online learning environments

Over the last decade, researchers have developed sophisticated online learning environments to support students engaging in argumentation. This review first considers the range of functionalities incorporated within these online environments. The review then presents five categories of analytic frameworks focusing on (1) formal argumentation structure, (2) normative quality, (3) nature and function of contributions within the dialog, (4) epistemic nature of reasoning, and (5) patterns and trajectories of participant interaction. Example analytic frameworks from each category are presented in detail rich enough to illustrate their nature and structure. This rich detail is intended to facilitate researchers’ identification of possible frameworks to draw upon in developing or adopting analytic methods for their own work. Each framework is applied to a shared segment of student dialog to facilitate this illustration and comparison process. Synthetic discussions of each category consider the frameworks in light of the underlying theoretical perspectives on argumentation, pedagogical goals, and online environmental structures. Ultimately the review underscores the diversity of perspectives represented in this research, the importance of clearly specifying theoretical and environmental commitments throughout the process of developing or adopting an analytic framework, and the role of analytic frameworks in the future development of online learning environments for argumentation

'Enclaves of exposure' : a conceptual viewpoint to explore cross-ideology exposure on social network sites

Previous studies indicate mixed results as to whether social media constitutes ideological echo chambers. This inconsistency may arise due to a lack of theoretical frames that acknowledge the fact that contextual and technological factors allow varying levels of cross-cutting exposure on social media. This study suggests an alternative theoretical lens, divergence of exposure – co-existence of user groups with varying degrees of cross-ideology exposure related to the same issue – as a notion that serves as an overarching perspective. We suggest that mediated spaces, such as social media groups, can serve as enclaves of exposure that offer affordances for formation of user groups irrespective of offline social distinctions. Yet social elements cause some of them to display more cross-ideology exchange than others. To establish this claim empirically, we examine two Facebook page user networks (‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ and ‘Sri Lankans Hate Channel 4’) that emerged in response to Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, a controversial documentary broadcast by Channel 4 that accused Sri Lankan armed forces of human rights violation during the final stage of the separatist conflict in Sri Lanka. The results showed that the Facebook group network that supported the claims made by Channel 4 is more diverse in terms of ethnic composition, and is neither assortative nor disassortative across ethnicity, suggesting the presence of cross-ethnicity interaction. The pro-allegiant group was largely homogenous and less active, resembling a passive echo chamber. ‘Social mediation’ repurposes enclaves of exposure to represent polarized ideologies where some venues display cross-ideology exposure, while others resemble an ‘echo chamber’

Identifying Mediators of Socio-Technical Capital in a Networked Learning Environment

Online learning environments can do more than support immediate instructional objectives: they can also enable participants to gain value from a network of scholars and resources. Networks of weak ties provide access to potential collaborators and novel information beyond what is available in one’s immediate strong tie circles. These resources for potential action have been termed "bridging social capital". Since the capital in socio-technical networks resides partially in how the technology enables contact between people, it has been called "socio-technical capital." Combining these ideas, we call the weak ties enabled by a technical environment "bridging socio-technical capital". Inspired by this idea, our software for networked learning, Prometheus, has been designed to support online university level education and teacher professional development under an open community model. In these online environments, a number of people who may have something in common are participating in task-specific workspaces that are embedded in a shared virtual space. Our objective is to design this space to offer affordances for the sharing of something of value between participants beyond the specific instrumental objectives that brought them to the workspaces (e.g., professional development activities or taking a course). The analysis reported in this paper examines the extent to which people who come to the university environment for instrumental objectives such as taking a course encounter persons or products of others from outside their assigned workspaces. Various digital artifacts available in Prometheus--discussions, resources, user profiles, and wiki pages--are compared in terms of how they support these encounters, which we call "spontaneous associations." Affiliation networks are created and analyzed to characterize and compare spontaneous and preassigned associations. Results show that there is appreciable bridging across classes and degree programs, but the types of artifacts studied play different roles in mediating bridging socio-technical capital as measured by spontaneous associations. While there is much more activity within wikis and discussions, little of that activity helps users expand beyond their assigned contexts, primarily because discussions and especially wikis are owned by task-specific workspaces with controlled membership. Meanwhile, an appreciable percentage of access to profiles and resources (about a third) are bridging events, but these artifacts support fewer associations and no interaction, which limits their contribution to bridging socio-technical capital. The results revealed that we need to find ways to make users aware of relevant discussions and especially wikis outside their primary workspaces, and to increase opportunities for interaction around resources and profiles. More generally, this work highlights the importance of looking beyond immediate instructional objectives to design for bridging socio-technical capital in networked learning environments, and offers one approach to identifying how digital objects mediate such capital

Epistemic and social scripts in computer-supported collaborative learning

Collaborative learning in computer-supported learning environments typically means that learners work on tasks together, discussing their individual perspectives via text-based media or videoconferencing, and consequently acquire knowledge. Collaborative learning, however, is often sub-optimal with respect to how learners work on the concepts that are supposed to be learned and how learners interact with each other. One possibility to improve collaborative learning environments is to conceptualize epistemic scripts, which specify how learners work on a given task, and social scripts, which structure how learners interact with each other. In this contribution, two studies will be reported that investigated the effects of epistemic and social scripts in a text-based computer-supported learning environment and in a videoconferencing learning environment in order to foster the individual acquisition of knowledge. In each study the factors ‘epistemic script’ and ‘social script’ have been independently varied in a 2×2-factorial design. 182 university students of Educational Science participated in these two studies. Results of both studies show that social scripts can be substantially beneficial with respect to the individual acquisition of knowledge, whereas epistemic scripts apparently do not to lead to the expected effects

Representational practices in VMT.

This chapter analyzes the interaction of three students working on mathematics problems over several days in a virtual math team. Our analysis traces out how successful collaboration in a later session was contingent upon the work of prior sessions, and shows how representational practices are important aspects of these participants’ mathematical problem solving. We trace the formation, transformation and refinement of one problem-solving practice—problem decomposition—and three representational practices—inscribe first solve second, modulate perspective and visualize decomposition. The analysis is of theoretical interest because it suggests that “situated cognition” is contingent upon not only the immediate situation but also the chronologically prior resources and associated practices; shows how inscriptions become representations for the group through an interactive process of interpretation; and sheds light on “group cognition” as an interactional process that is not identical to individual cognition yet that draws upon a dynamic interplay of individual contributions