Investigating the Impact of Offline Interactions on Members of Online Communities

Abstract

Members of online communities are increasingly participating in offline meet-up events and offline meetups are an increasingly important aspect of participation in many online communities. Prior research has shown these interactions are highly valued by community members, especially in video-sharing communities such as YouTube and online link sharing communities like Reddit. However, little is known about the impact such offline meetings have on the productivity and participation of members within the communities, and what research has been conducted has provided conflicting results. This research utilizes the lenses of Legitimate Peripheral Participation and Media Synchronicity Theory together to clarify prior inconsistent findings and investigate how offline interactions impact the productivity and participation of members of online communities. This was done through a multi-year process of ethnographic fieldwork including in-person and online participant observation, the collection of a decade of Reddit comment and posting data, 42 semi-structured interviews conducted both online and in-person, and a detailed case study of one YouTube collaboration channel. Overall members of offline communities showed a great deal of value in offline meetup events, describing them as critical and central elements of being a member of their respective community. As a result, there are clear impacts on individuals from their participation in offline meetup events, resulting from increased frequency of communication and a shift in their media choices to facilitate new and changing relationships with other community members. Individuals’ participation within their original community is also impacted – although not their continued membership – as they shift away from the medium hosting that community to develop their interpersonal relationships with other members. Curiously, despite clear evidence of the impact of offline interactions on individuals, members of these communities are often at pains to not exclude other members who do not, or cannot, attend such events. Claiming that offline interactions are not required for participation in a community, or a senior status within it. This work holds clear implications for the future of designing for online communities, particularly for platform that host such communities, and ensuring the right sort of communication tools are available to members at the right times in order to facilitate member interaction not just with the community but also with other members. This in turn will inform design techniques for platforms to limit user-attrition and encourage longevity, growth, and productivity in these communities. From a theoretical perspective this dissertation observes unique processes occurring within the Legitimate Peripheral Participation of group members moving through a Community of Practice that are not part of the traditional theory and offers potential explanations for these observed deviations as a jumping off point for future research. Additionally, it is also the first work to combine the theoretical lenses of Media Synchronicity Theory and Legitimate Peripheral Participation and as such offers a unique perspective into the media choices of individuals as they move through a Community of Practice. Future work from this research can look to uncover more around the active denial of users over the demonstrable impacts of meeting in person.