Social network sites SNSs are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x

Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

In this paper, we study the linking patterns and discussion topics of political bloggers. Our aim is to measure the degree of interaction between liberal and conservative blogs, and to uncover any differences in the structure of the two communities. Specifically, we analyze the posts of 40 "A-list" blogs over the period of two months preceding the U.S. Presidential Election of 2004, to study how often they referred to one another and to quantify the overlap in the topics they discussed, both within the liberal and conservative communities, and also across communities. We also study a single day snapshot of over 1,000 political blogs. This snapshot captures blogrolls (the list of links to other blogs frequently found in sidebars), and presents a more static picture of a broader blogosphere. Most significantly, we find differences in the behavior of liberal and conservative blogs, with conservative blogs linking to each other more frequently and in a denser pattern.

/pdf/the-political-blogosphere-and-the-2004-u-s-election-divided-4t2xyr2bbp.pdf

The political blogosphere and the 2004 U.S. election: divided they blog

In recent years, the Internet has come to dominate our lives. E-mail, instant messaging and chat are rapidly replacing conventional forms of correspondence, and the Web has become the first port of call for both information enquiry and leisure activity. How is this affecting language? There is a widespread view that as 'technospeak' comes to rule, standards will be lost. In this book, David Crystal argues the reverse: that the Internet has encouraged a dramatic expansion in the variety and creativity of language. Covering a range of Internet genres, including e-mail, chat, and the Web, this is a revealing account of how the Internet is radically changing the way we use language. This second edition has been thoroughly updated to account for more recent phenomena, with a brand new chapter on blogging and instant messaging. Engaging and accessible, it will continue to fascinate anyone who has ever used the Internet.

https://videoweb.nie.edu.sg/phonetic/reviews/crystal.pdf

Language and the Internet

Generalized Linear Models (2nd ed.)

Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

The "blogosphere" has been claimed to be a densely interconnected conversation, with bloggers linking to other bloggers, referring to them in their entries, and posting comments on each other's blogs. Most such characterizations have privileged a subset of popular blogs, known as the 'A-list.' This study empirically investigates the extent to which, and in what patterns, blogs are interconnected, taking as its point of departure randomly-selected blogs. Quantitative social network analysis, visualization of link patterns, and qualitative analysis of references and comments in pairs of reciprocally-linked blogs show that A-list blogs are overrepresented and central in the network, although other groupings of blogs are more densely interconnected. At the same time, a majority of blogs link sparsely or not at all to other blogs in the sample, suggesting that the blogosphere is partially interconnected and sporadically conversational.

/pdf/conversations-in-the-blogosphere-an-analysis-from-the-bottom-4krnigtbi8.pdf

Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up"

A relationship among language, gender, and discourse genre has previously been observed in informal, spoken interaction and formal, written texts. This study investigates the language/gender/genre relationship in weblogs, a popular new mode of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Taking as the dependent variables stylistic features identified in machine learning research and popularized in a Web interface called the Gender Genie, a multivariate analysis was conducted of entries from random weblogs in a sample balanced for author gender and weblog sub-genre (diary or filter). The results show that the diary entries contained more 'female' stylistic features, and the filter entries more 'male' stylistic features, independent of author gender. These findings problematize the characterization of the stylistic features as gendered, and suggest a need for more fine-grained genre analysis in CMC research. At the same time, it is observed that conventional associations of gender with certain spoken and written genres are reproduced in weblogs, along with their societal valuations.

Gender and genre variation in weblogs

This paper examines linguistic variation on an Internet Relay Chat channel with respect to the hypothesis, based on the model of Milroy and Milroy (1992), that standard variants tend to be associated with weak social network ties, while vernacular variants are associated with strong network ties. An analysis of frequency of contact as a measure of tie strength reveals a structured relationship between tie strength and several linguistic variants. However, the variant features are associated with social positions in a way that does not correlate neatly with tie strength. An account of these results is proposed in terms of the social functions of the different variables and the larger social context of IRC affecting tie strength.

https://www.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~roland/SLANG12/presentations/2a5-Language_Variation.pdf

Language variation on Internet Relay Chat: A social network approach

The book explains the theory and practice of using logistic regression for the description of language variation, including a comprehensive discussion of the Varbrul program used in sociolinguistics. Assuming no prior background in statistics, Paolillo explains the statistical foundation of logistic regression, using concrete examples of variation bearing on substantive issues in linguistics.

Analyzing Linguistic Variation: Statistical Models and Methods

In this paper, we present results of an empirical investigation into the social structure of YouTube, addressing friend relations and their correlation with tags applied to uploaded videos. Results indicate that YouTube producers are strongly linked to others producing similar content. Furthermore, there is a socially cohesive core of producers of mixed content, with smaller cohesive groups around Korean music video and anime music videos. Thus, social interaction on YouTube appears to be structured in ways similar to other social networking sites, but with greater semantic coherence around content. These results are explained in terms of the relationship of video producers to the tagging of uploaded content on the site.

John C. Paolillo

Papers

Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up"

Gender and genre variation in weblogs

Language variation on Internet Relay Chat: A social network approach

Analyzing Linguistic Variation: Statistical Models and Methods

Structure and Network in the YouTube Core