Online spaces that enable shared public interpersonal communications are of significant social, organizational, and economic importance. In this paper, a theoretical model and associated unobtrusive method are proposed for researching the relationship between online spaces and the behavior they host. The model focuses on the collective impact that individual information-overload coping strategies have on the dynamics of open, interactive public online group discourse. Empirical research was undertaken to assess the validity of both the method and the model, based on the analysis of over 2.65 million postings to 600 Usenet newsgroups over a 6-month period. Our findings support the assertion that individual strategies for coping with “information overload” have an observable impact on large-scale online group discourse. Evidence was found for the hypotheses that: (1) users are more likely to respond to simpler messages in overloaded mass interaction; (2) users are more likely to end active participation as the overloading of mass interaction increases; and (3) users are more likely to generate simpler responses as the overloading of mass interaction grows. The theoretical model outlined offers insight into aspects of computer-mediated communication tool usability, technology design, and provides a road map for future empirical research.

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Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs) make the process of collaboration more transparent, because a transcript of conference messages can be used to assess individual roles and contributions and the collaborative process itself. This study considers three aspects of ALNs: the design; the quality of the resulting knowledge construction process; and cohesion, role and power network structures. The design is evaluated according to the Social Interdependence Theory of CooperativeLearning. The quality of the knowledge construction process is evaluated through Content Analysis; and the network structures are analyzed using Social Network Analysis of the response relations among participants during online discussions. In this research we analyze data from two three-monthlong ALN academic university courses: a formal, structured, closed forum and an informal, nonstructured, open forum. We found that in the structured ALN, the knowledge construction processreached a very high phase of critical thinking and developed cohesive cliques. The students took on bridging and triggering roles, while the tutor had relatively little power. In the non-structured ALN, the knowledge construction process reached a low phase of cognitive activity; few cliques were constructed; most of the students took on the passive role of teacher-followers; and the tutor was at the center of activity. These differences are statistically significant. We conclude that a well-designed ALN develops significant, distinct cohesion, and role and power structures lead the knowledge construction process to high phases of critical thinking.

This study examines the chronemics of response latencies in asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) by analyzing three datasets comprising a total of more than 150,000 responses: email responses created by corporate employees, responses created by university students in course discussion groups, and responses to questions posted in a public, commercial online information market. Mathematical analysis of response latencies reveals a normative pattern common to all three datasets: The response latencies yielded a powerlaw distribution, such that most of the responses (at least 70%) were created within the average response latency of the responders, while very few (at most 4%) of the responses were created after a period longer than 10 times the average response latency. These patterns persist across diverse user populations, contexts, technologies, and average response latencies. Moreover, it is shown that the same pattern appears in traditional, spoken communication and in other forms of online media such as online surveys. The implications of this uniformity are discussed, and three normative chronemic zones are identified.

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