Online Media Forums as Separate Social Lives: A Qualitative Study of Disclosure Within and Beyond Reddit

Shelton, Martin; Lo, Katherine; Nardi, Bonnie

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/73676 Copy

Description

Title

Online Media Forums as Separate Social Lives: A Qualitative Study of Disclosure Within and Beyond Reddit

Author(s)

• Shelton, Martin
• Lo, Katherine
• Nardi, Bonnie

Issue Date

2015-03-15

Keyword(s)

• qualitative research methods
• social computing
• online communities

Abstract

Social media websites and web forums increasingly resemble massive media-sharing spaces where participants must manage self-presentation by targeting data disclosures to anticipated audiences. To explore the dynamics of selective disclosure, we conducted a qualitative study with participants on the social news site, reddit, and examined how people discuss its content in conversation on the website, in other websites, and in face-to-face conversation. We conducted 24 interviews with users and analyzed a supplementary corpus of popular reddit threads and reddit Internet Relay Chat logs. We also made regular use of the website to ground our understanding of the community. In our inductive analysis we found that many reddit users described deliberate social choices to compartmentalize discussions involving content on the website from their social lives beyond.

Publisher

iSchools

Series/Report Name or Number

iConference 2015 Proceedings

Type of Resource

text

Language

English

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/73676

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Copyright 2015 is held by the authors. Copyright permissions, when appropriate, must be obtained directly from the authors.

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