Information exchange in virtual communities under extreme disaster conditions
Introduction
Recent advances in Internet and communication technologies have led to the rapid growth of social networking sites. Popular forms of these virtual social networks include Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, wikis, blog sites, and discussion forums. Participants utilize these social networks to connect to people with similar social, economic, and political interests, forming various virtual communities in cyberspace. There were more than 250 million active users of Facebook [22] and 100 million users in MySpace [41].
Virtual communities (VCs) are self-organizing, voluntary, and open participation systems that are created and sustained through computer-mediated communications [57]. VCs are grassroots media for daily communication and entertainment. The availability of social network tools in the hand of ordinary people makes information exchange potent and dynamic. However, when it comes to disaster management and communication, the role of VCs is unclear and not well-studied. Few studies examine people's online behavior and communication pattern in the aftermath of disasters [18].
To improve existing research methods and to create new insights on the dynamic properties of virtual communities, this research captures communication data from an online discussion forum and empirically investigates the relations between social capital and information exchange after a major earthquake.
A massive 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan province in China on May 12, 2008. This catastrophic disaster killed nearly 70 000 people and displaced up to 10 million. People tried to reach their families and friends via many communication tools. Many individuals also sought support and exchanged information through online communities, such as mailing lists, chat rooms, and discussion forums. They shared their personal experiences, uploaded on-site pictures and videos, and updated rescue progress. Online communities and discussion forums constituted a useful proxy for the underlying communication networks after the earthquake.
The empathy and shared reflection that brought people together via online virtual communities across barriers of time, distance, and culture, was revitalizing during this disaster [62]. Communication and a spirit of compassion can help strengthen any community, online and offline. The glue that holds communities and other social networks together is called social capital [46]. Social capital is a resource that helps sustain a community [38]. Putnam [47] asserts that social capital encourages collaboration and cooperation between members of groups for their mutual benefits.
There are several theories to examine community response and information coordination in disaster environments, such as complex adaptive systems theory [16], sense-making theory [59], and organizational learning theory [14]. However, these theories do not fully cover the social network functions for information exchange during a disaster. Social capital theory can capture the essential content of social support and collaboration in the context of a disaster.
Therefore, we employ the theory of social capital to examine the mechanism by which social capital contributes to information exchange in VCs. Specifically, this research examines the following two sets of relationships: (1) How the three dimensions of social capital interplay among themselves; and (2) How each dimension of social capital influences information exchange in a VC.
Such inquiry makes two important contributions. First, this research empirically examines the mechanism of which social capital impacts information exchange in extreme disaster conditions. We reveal the communication characteristics and impediments of online social networks for disaster communication, and then propose socio-technical design strategies to address the communication challenges under uncertain emergency. Second, few studies examine the internal mechanism of social capital. This study implements a hierarchical model to investigate the interplay relationships among three dimensions of social capital.
This article is organized as follows. First, the concepts of social capital, VCs, and information exchange are reviewed. Then, a model is developed to examine how social capital influences information exchange in a VC. This model is tested using survey and Web forum data. The article concludes by discussing how the empirical findings of this study contribute to theory development and improve system design for new social networking sites.
Section snippets
Social capital
Social capital is defined as “resources embedded in a social structure that are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive action” (p. 29) [33]. The essence of social capital is quality social relations, which affects the capacity of people to come together to collectively resolve problems they face in common and achieve outcomes of mutual benefit [35]. Thus, social capital can be understood as a resource for collective action, which may lead to a broad range of individual and group outcomes. For
Research model and hypotheses development
To understand how VCs support emergency and disaster communication, we will examine each of the three dimensions of social capital that influences the quality and quantity of information exchange. Based on the literature review, we develop a research model and propose hypotheses (Fig. 1). We implement a hierarchical model for this research according to Wetzels et al. [60]. As shown in Fig. 1, structural capital is a second-order construct including one first-order construct: social interaction
Operationalization of constructs
A survey instrument was developed by identifying appropriate measurements from a comprehensive literature review. Measurement items were adapted from prior articles wherever possible. Some minor modifications were made to the existing scales to make those more suitable to this research context. All of the items were measured on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Appendix A summarizes the constructs used in this study and their operationalization.
Measurement validation
Partial least square (PLS) is used for measurement validation and testing the structural model. Unlike a covariance-based structural equation modeling method such as LIRREL and AMOS, PLS employs a component-based approach for estimation, and can handle both formative and reflective constructs [11]. In general, PLS is better suited for explaining complex relationships be avoiding inadmissible solutions and factor indeterminacy [24], [32]. Hence, we chose PLS to accommodate the presence of a
Summary of results
The aim of this study is to study how VCs support information flow and communication in the context of disasters. We investigated the complex mechanism in which social capital influences information exchange in a VC. First, we found that cognitive capital has a significant, positive effect on relational capital, but structural capital has no influence on relational capital. This implies that structural capital is not a predicator of relational capital, and senses of trust and reciprocity cannot
Conclusion
VCs can play an important and significant role in distributing messages, coordinating community activities, and delivering person-to-person relief during a disaster emergency. Many VCs are open social networks, which make them attractive for individuals to seek information and ask for help during an emergency period. However, our study shows that VCs also have impediments in information overload and misinformation. Therefore, we call for socio-technical design solutions to address the
Acknowledgement
We are grateful for financial support from the China Natural Sciences Foundation Project (70672112,71072167) and the Leading Academic Program, 211 Project of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics.
Yong Lu is an assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton campus. His research interests center at virtual communities, social capital, and information security. His research articles have appeared in Computers and Education, Journal of Computer Information Systems, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, International Conference on Information Systems, and others.
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Cited by (0)
Yong Lu is an assistant professor of information sciences and technology at Pennsylvania State University, Hazleton campus. His research interests center at virtual communities, social capital, and information security. His research articles have appeared in Computers and Education, Journal of Computer Information Systems, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, International Conference on Information Systems, and others.
Dan Yang is a professor of Business Administration in the School of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China. His research interests include reform of state-owned enterprises, corporate governance, behavioral accounting and IPO pricing. His work has been published in leading academic journals including Journal of Accounting Organizations and Society, Journal of Economic Research, Journal of Investment Research, Journal of Accounting Research, and Journal of Financial Research.