Reading and Reviewing
Tanguy Coenen’s 2006 journal, “Structural Aspects of Online Social Networking Systems and Their Influence on Knowledge Sharing,” focuses on the idea of knowledge management where information is shared through the interaction between people. Coenen describes knowledge sharing as a “social exchange process,” and explains the structure of existing online social networking systems and how each part facilitates knowledge sharing. The writer gives evidence that more knowledge is shared in groups, which consist of a “closed membership.”
The most relevant section of this paper is the description of online social networking systems and how they work. Coenen states that an online social networking system aims to expand the social networks of those taking part, a social network being a group of people and their relationships. It is said that different types of online social networking systems are needed to address the various types of relationships between people.
According to the writer, the IADIS International Conference on Web Based Communities 2006 stated that dating systems are the most popular, but the least appropriate, in terms of knowledge sharing.
Coenen refers to undirected one-to-one relationships as “dyads,” explaining that a dyad is of a certain relationship, such as “friend of,” “relative of,” or “informant of.” When relationships within a group are mapped, a social network is formed. Many online social networking systems have the option for members to view a social network and see who is connected to whom. This offers users the chance to link themselves to others, with whom they would not have the opportunity under normal circumstances to interact. The idea is that people in the system could lead you to other people you may find interesting. This can allow one person to establish relationships among a vast range of people who they would not normally communicate with.
Coenen then goes on to discuss the creation of groups within social network systems, a platform in which users can communicate. Many of today’s social networking systems provide tools for creating discussion pages, where users can post messages for everyone in the group to see. Membership lists are common in group social networking systems, and enable users to learn about other members of the group. Through these groups, knowledge can be spread by a post from a single member of the group viewed by the entire social network.
Through the formation of a group by one dyad, and by allowing others to join, the previous one-to-one relationships are now no longer focused toward one individual, and instead these dyads come together to form a larger whole. The greater the number of relationships within the social network, the further knowledge is spread. A knock-on effect is created through new members being encouraged to join the groups by existing members, and as these new members become part of the group, they too can invite new users, potentially increasing the knowledge base.
Within social networking systems, a closed membership is when prospective members have to first apply to join, or meet pre-existing conditions before they become part of the group. A well-known example of a closed membership is Facebook, the world’s largest social network, which at the time of writing has a user base of over 570 million. (checkfacebook.com, 2010) Before Facebook became publicly available, members could only join if they were students at Harvard University, and had a functioning @harvard.edu email account.
With online social networks such as Facebook being publicly available around the world, the potential for knowledge being transferred from one part of the world to another is vast. Below is a map of my own social network showing how my friends and family on Facebook are all connected to one another, not only through myself but through other mutual friends or "Connectors" as Gladwell would call them.
“Personal Connections in the Digital Age,” a 2010 book written by Nancy K. Baym, takes a primary focus on the role of social networking in different contexts, including the spread of knowledge within and through interpersonal relationships. Chapter four, Communities and Networks, is perhaps the most relevant chapter in relation to my line of enquiry.
Baym supports Coenen’s idea that the Internet has come a long way from one-to-one communication systems, and the creation of social networking groups has allowed messages to be spread globally. Baym also mentions that even before the internet was available in the current form we use today, mailing lists and group communication systems had been created, such as SF-Lovers, a science-fiction fan mailing list, and through The Well, an influential San Francisco-based bulletin board system (Rheingold, 1993), the numbers of these communication forms spread rapidly, giving rise to even greater numbers of mailing lists organised according to the subject, websites and Usenet newsgroups.
A term often used in description of group communication on the Internet is “community.” Baym implies that the word is used for its friendly and warm connotations, in that it seems to actively welcome new users joining, although the author points out that there has been heated debate for many years as to whether the term is applicable for describing groups of online users. The two main conflicting points are that those against state that common geography is a necessary condition of “community,” whereas those who label their groups “communities” say that all is required is a metaphorical sense of shared space. As the vast majority of members of online groups do not share the same geographical space, yet the number of groups that exist online is vast, it appears that users may not see a common geographical location as of the utmost importance when taking part in these online groups. With the worldwide popularity social networking systems now enjoy, users’ knowledge can be spread far and wide without ever leaving their computers, showing that geography is no longer a barrier in the transfer of knowledge.
An important example of knowledge sharing that Baym gives the reader is the “knowledge community” of fans of the 2006 TV show “Survivor.” (Jenkins, 2006) In this online group, users worked together, each using their knowledge and resources to discover the identities of the show’s contestants, and the eventual winner, before the show had even began to air on TV. This can be seen as users spreading their knowledge on a specialised subject among other group members with the same interests, creating a massive pool of knowledge through collaboration.
A much more recent example of knowledge sharing which was not mentioned in Nancy Baym’s book, which is currently still dominating the front pages of many world newspapers, is the release of US Embassy cables through the website Wikileaks. On the 28th November 2010, Julian Assange, the website founder, was given hundreds of thousands of documents that had been leaked to him from a member of the US military. Assange then put these documents online for the world to see, causing uproar in the world’s media, with some American commentators calling for him to be killed. While the leaked cables are still making an impact on the world’s media, it is worth noting that not even 1,500 cables have been released online of the 250,000 given to Assange (Wikileaks, 2010).
The Wikileaks case is a type of example of Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Law of the Few” concept, as a small number of people, in this case the staff running the Wikileaks website, have released documents worldwide, and have caught the attention of media forms across the world, therefore spreading knowledge worldwide.
In relation to “The Law of the Few,” Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, can be seen as a connector. This can be explained as he had the acquaintance, in this case, Bradley Manning (Drury, 2010), who was able to provide him with the leaked embassy cables in the first place. As Assange could not have set up the entire website and leak all of the cables himself, he used the help of people he knew to aid him in the running of the website. The online community was a great ally in helping the spread of awareness of the leaked cables through word of mouth. Twitter, in particular, was a very important resource that Wikileaks could take advantage of, as the website was a popular trending topic across the world.
All of the above factors helped to build the profile of Wikileaks to such an extent that it created a tipping point, and therefore the start of an epidemic, in this case the massive spread of awareness through the Internet, the front pages of many of the world’s newspapers and news bulletins worldwide for days, with Assange still dominating front pages to this day.
Coenen’s study is perhaps another example of Gladwell’s “The Law of the Few.” This study supports the idea that one person can have the power to link others, and therefore encourage the spread of an idea or of knowledge. In Gladwell’s book, “The Tipping Point,” he discusses Stanley Milgram’s theory of the “Six Degrees of Separation.” This, in effect, is shown by Coenen’s description of social networking groups and the explanation that one person can set up a group inviting others, and once invited to the group themselves, new members can add other users outwith the group. All members within the group would be connected together, but each individual member would ultimately be linked back to the creator of the group.
Baym’s take on social networking, with a particular focus on group communication, is a valuable resource when considering the importance of online communities in the spread of knowledge through the Internet. When using the example of the Survivor online fan group, Gladwell’s “Law of the Few” can be used, in that members of the fan group are maverns. The group’s members can be seen as maverns, as by working out the contestants’ identities before the show even began airing, they accumulated the knowledge they possessed themselves and shared it with the other members of the group. By accumulating said information, and achieving their goal of working out the winner of the upcoming season of the show, they also draw the comparison to maverns by passing on the information gained through their accumulated knowledge to other online users. In effect, the group’s users have used their own knowledge with the knowledge of others to pass information online.
In conclusion, these sources are fact-based, in that they use other sources to confirm what they are saying. All the sources support Gladwell’s “Law of the Few,” in one way or another. They also show how the Internet is used by connectors and maverns, in order to pass on knowledge between users. Gladwell’s idea that certain people have the gift of bringing other people together is shown through the creation of online social networking groups as shown in the diagram above. Social networking sites are an effective tool in aiding the spread of knowledge.
Bibliography
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York University Press: New York.
Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Addison-Wesley. Reading, MA.
Daily Mail Online: Drury, I. (2010) Wikileaks: US Army soldier Bradley Manning is prime suspect in leaks case [Internet]
Available from:
[Accessed 13 December 2010]
Wikileaks: Secret US Embassy Cables [Internet]
Available from:
[Available 13 December 2010]
(PLEASE NOTE: As the Wikileaks site address has been shut down by the company owning the domain name, mirror sites have been used in order to keep the site available for access. As these mirror sites are vulnerable to attack as a result of the leaked embassy cables, please be aware that the mirrors may be shut down at any time. Below is a list of all the sites being used as mirrors for Wikileaks.)
Wikileaks Mirrors [Internet]
Available from:
[Accessed 15 December 2010]
Coenen. Tanguy. (2006). “Structural Aspects of Online Social Networking Systems and Their Influence on Knowledge Sharing.” [Internet]
Available from:
[Accessed 13 December 2010]
Baym, N.K. (2010) “Personal Connections in the Digital Age.” Polity Press. Malden, MA.
Gladwell, M. (2000) “The Tipping Point.” Abacus, London, UK.
