Generating collective online information sharing: The framing effect of questions on response network

Abstract

Community Question‐Answering (CQA) sites are virtual communities where users participate in collective online information sharing. Questions in CQA sites serve as starting points for information sharing, eliciting a response network (RN), where nodes are the postings, while edges represent the responses between postings. This research employed framing theory to investigate how question frames affected their resulting RNs. Question frames were operationalized as conversational and informational. Social network analysis was conducted to explore the RNs of different question frames for both Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and non‐STEM communities. Results revealed that most RNs of STEM conversational questions were larger in size and had higher centrality, whereas RNs of informational questions comprised closer relationships between postings. However, no significant differences were found in the non‐STEM community. Our research suggests that community moderators and askers should appropriately utilize question frames to organize information sharing inside CQA communities.

Asking for help in community question-answering

“…In CQA, questions can be treated as goal-expressions for coordinating responses [27]. To explain the effect of goalexpressions on responses, framing theory posits that a goalframe selectively attracts responders' attention to a specific goal [17].…”

“…Community question-answering (CQA) has become a prevalent tool for information retrieval by exploiting "the wisdom of crowds" [20]. In particular, questions can be viewed as goalexpressions and potentially influence the responders [27]. Here, responders are answerers and commenters to the questions.…”

“…To examine the responses to questions, most studies focused on quality and quantity, losing sight of the networked nature of CQA responses [6,7]. The responses to a CQA question are networked because users not only respond to questions directly but also indirectly by commenting on others' answers [27]. By investigating from the network level, social network analysis (SNA) can illustrate the structure of connections between questions and responses, indicating how a question influences knowledge exchange between various responses.…”

Understanding user‐generated questions in social Q&A: A goal‐framing approach

“…The rapid development of social question and answer (Q&A) communities empowers dispersed individuals to co‐create knowledge (Faraj et al, 2011; Zhang et al, 2019). As the starting point of knowledge co‐creation, user‐generated questions determine the scope of responses (i.e., answers and comments) (Wu et al, 2020a; Zhang et al, 2019). Earlier research has reported that questions spur knowledge exchange, initiate interactions, and encourage innovations (Bighash et al, 2018; Brooks & John, 2018; Wu et al, 2022).…”

Making Sense of Responders' Evaluations of Question Answerability from Academic Q&A Sites

“…To analyze question answerability, question cues are the linguistic characteristics for responders to identify the asker's needs (Banerjee, 2017; Chowdhury, 2003) and make decisions regarding whether to answer. Importantly, it was found that askers can utilize various question cues to specify goals (Wu et al, 2023): (1) cognitive cues include complexity and specificity that specify the cognitive goals for responders (Te'eni, 1990; Wu et al, 2022a); (2) emotional cues convey personal feelings (i.e., emotional expressiveness, self‐disclosure) (Fu et al, 2022; Kring et al, 1994; Shi et al, 2018); and (3) social cues refer to collaborative climate and politeness that stress on collective goals and support social interactions (Petrov et al, 2020; Wu et al, 2022b) (refer to Figure 1). However, the influences of question cues on responders' evaluations of question answerability are not yet well understood.…”