Nick Fajt (green)
Melissa Bernard (purple)
We coded five messages in four separate threads from four different groups: ocd help, HELP! Our son is acting bizarre!!! ...Very worried parents, Women are b****es, and Adderall Problem.
Unlike the Braithwaite study, we found informative support to be the most prevalent, while emotional support was a distant second. This result is, however, consistent with the Cutrona and Suhr (1992) study. Braithwaite attributed the differences in her study and the Curtona study to the different experimental settings examined, claiming the Curtona and Suhr environment was “nonemotional.” Our group examined four different online spaces that were, arguably, very emotionally driven. Therefore our contrasting results are probably not a result of the messages we examined, but instead the way that we used the coding system. Our group found every message we examined to contain informational support. One reason for this may have been because we rated the first five posts on four separate discussion threads which may have been more informative in support than later, more complex threads after the basic information has been laid out. It is also possible that we were being too liberal (or Braithwaite was too conservative) in our coding of this category. However, based on our understanding of Braithwaite’s “informational support,” it is difficult to imagine a support statement that doesn’t include an informational or instructive element. This leads directly into the limitations of this coding process. As evidenced above, the coding structure and style is heavily reliant on the individual’s understanding of each coding category. Another limitation factor that was found in our examination and referenced by Braithwaite, is the inability to incorporate the perspective of the senders, because we lacked self-reported data. We were also hindered by the inability to incorporate the way messages were perceived by the recipients because none of the recipients in the posts we examined ever replied to the support they were given. This is a significant limitation as the state of mind of both sender and receiver is what we are, in many ways, examining.
Despite these limitations, the coding method did allow us to gain a reasonable understanding of the types of support offered in online groups. Our group noticed that the strongest forms of support generally included multiple categories of coding, while the weakest forms of support just exhibited information support. The support responses that appeared most thoughtful and thoroughly engaging tended to exhibit informational, esteem and emotional support. As tangible assistance was only witnessed once and network support was never witnessed it is hard for us to really weigh in on how they might affect the strength of a support statement. Braithwaite’s reasoning aligns closely with ours in that tangible assistance often requires physical proximity and that users are fulfilling their neet for network support just by participating in a the discussion. The humor element didn’t really appear to add or detract significantly from the strength of support, and in many ways the humor seemed to appeal more to third party readers rather the recipient themselves as they did not add to the content of the post.
Threads
alt.support.anxiety-panic
ocd help
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.anxiety-panic/browse_thread/thread/16a3e744e1af418d/
alt.psychology.personality
HELP! Our son is acting bizarre!!! ...Very worried parents
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.psychology.personality/browse_thread/thread/b07af8d974b301d5/
alt.romance
Women are b****es,
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.romance/browse_thread/thread/a9c41677f1c3a62a/
alt.support.attn-deficit
Help--Adderall Problem
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.attn-deficit/browse_thread/thread/4e5aeece5090b1be/
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