GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME (I think he has ADHD) Assignment 8

Due to personal issues occurring this weekend I was unable to find a partner within 245 to do this project with however, I asked one of my friends to read the material (Braithwaite et al) and help me out with the coding.

Braithwaite et al (1999) used "the five-category system developed by Cutrona and Suhr
(1992): information support, tangible assistance, esteem support, network support,
and emotional support" to code over 1400 messages.

Using the method outlined in the aforementioned study, my friend and I proceeded to separately code 20 messages in one thread.

The thread we chose dealt with diagnosing a 3 year old with ADHD. This sparked much conversation about the disease itself and less about how to actually help the woman. This speaks to the volatility of the topic itself. The fact that the person who recommended that the child be looked at was his preschool teacher also sparked a discussion.

Here are our results:

% inter-rater reliability			85%
			frequency	% of msgs
Information			16	0.8
Tangible assistance			0	0
Esteem support			1	0.05
Network support			0	0
Emotional support			8	0.4
Humor			2	0.1

We found information support to be the most prevalent, followed by emotional support unlike the Braithwaite study which found emotional support to be the most prevalent followed by informational support. This was due to many of the messages arguing back and forth about the situation resulting in more of a situational appraisal or advice type message rather than emotional support type messages.

Unlike Braithwaite, we found no messages offering tangible support or network support. This may have to do with the specific situation at hand since there was not much tangible support that could have been offered that would have truly helped this woman. I wasn't surprised that network support had such low numbers since people on support threads often tell stories about situations they have heard of but rarely give you a way to contact the person who they are referring to.

There was not much humor in our messages either but that has to do with the fact that the discussion took a serious turn and since the subject was so volatile, humor would have seemed rude.

The percentages we found overall differed significantly than that of the study but than that was to be expected due to the fact that we focused on only one small thread. Braithwaite's study focused on more of a variety of messages.

Walther and Boyd's four dimensions of attraction to online support are prevalent in this study. Social distance allowed the people to speak their mind freely without physical reprimand. Although one person was called out on their misinformation, for the most part, people stayed friendly and the discussion moved peacefully.

Anonymity helped in allowing the woman to post a question about her personal life without fear of someone being able to tell who she was. Anonymity also helped in allowing other group members to respond to her post truthfully.

The idea of access is also prevalent. By posting on an online group thread, the woman is ensuring that she is reaching anyone who is in the group as well as random Internet surfers who stumble upon the thread. This allows her question to reach people all over the world and gives her access to more information and advice than she could have found in FtF interactions.

Interaction management was shown when people responded separately to specific parts of a post or when they could take as much time as needed before posting. This allowed a better message to be posted since the message could be specifically tailored.


We used the following thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids/browse_thread/thread/8936bebf00b78aee/c5d79eb11e7d8abe#c5d79eb11e7d8abe