Bales Analysis

A method of analysing social interaction is Bales Interactive Process Analysis (IPA) (Bales 1950). The analysis puts conversational remarks expressed into either a task orientated, social-emotive positive or social-emotive negative category. Each one is further sub-categorised. Despite it being a method created many years before the existence of public online blogs and forums, it is relevant as it is designed to be applied to transcripts of conversation. Using a transcript of conversation off the COOL general module discussions forum I have applied Bales analysis – 

Nick posts – 

After Tuesdays tutorial i would liekt to know if anyone else has been invloved in on-line bullying, by either been the victim or the bully 

IPA 7.2 – Asks topic-related information.

 Dimitrios replies – bullying like ‘if i find you im gonna beat the (&(*^ out of ya?’ or like having your system shutdown – upon reboot receiving a blue screen? ;pI’ve been involved in both. Being a moderator in any online community, your actions may cause dislike. Although i never got a blue screen – im lucky i guess ;p IPA 7.2 – Asks topic-related information.

IPA 6.2 – Gives topic-related information.

IPA 2 – Shows tension release, jokes, laughs, shows satisfaction. 

David replies – I’ve been bullied on online communities before. The words used were very colourful to say the least. It happened 7 months ago & the strange thing is I saw the lad who gave me this abuse 2 weeks ago & he said hello to me. I was shocked to say the least and I told him I was shocked. I said to him, when last we spoke, you abused me. He just said, “oh well”. Well we had a good chat anyway. It just goes to show you that some people have more guts online than offline. 

IPA 6.1 – Gives personal information.

IPA 6.2 – Gives topic-related information. 

Nick posts again – maybe its not about having more guts on-line but about not realising the full extent to there actions. 

IPA 4 – Gives suggestions, directions implying autonomy for others. 

Dimitrios posts again – or maybe because some people don’t understand that their actions online have reactions offline. Although this is a good idea, it’s a false idea and sometimes it has negative outcome. 

IPA 5 – Gives opinion, information, repeats, clarifies, confirms.

IPA 10 – Disagrees, shows passive rejection, formality, withholds help. 

In the conversation, the analysis shows that a task oriented conversation is taking place, with personal experiences shared, and disagreement expressed about the behaviour of one experience. This might seem obvious, with nothing more than an ongoing commentary achieved from this singular conversation

 By categorising both social-emotive and task orientated statements, Bales analysis covers wide sphere of interaction. This enables an observer to gain a grasp of the type of conversation and possibly predict where a conversation is going if repetition occurs from other similar conversation. Bales analysis could be used to gain a psychological insight on a particular person when analysed over several conversations.          

Community Formation and Behavior

This week I’m going to discuss theories of community formation and behaviour by analysing how an externally planned online county cricket fan group has formed and evolved. As a fan on my beloved county team Yorkshire I recently joined a relatively new online community called ‘The Corridor of Uncertainty’ (http://www.corridorofuncertainty.co.uk/) which is a Yorkshire county cricket club unofficial website, and was formed in July 2006. Its features include a blog, message boards and a chat room.  

The Corridor of Uncertainty site’s message board follows closely to Kat Nagel’s Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists (see http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/lifelist.html). Whilst the board isn’t an actual mailing list, it does have parallels. Discussed are the mailing list life cycle mentioned in regards to the fan website’s message boards – 

1) Initial enthusiasm – Viewing the initial message board posts, almost all were started by the site’s founder, and received few replies (around 1-5 each). Discussed mainly were match and club news. Whilst this follows Nagel’s first ideal, it is a predictable occurrence. I think where any new group meets, people are going to try to find common ground, and if people are meeting in a Yorkshire cricket message board then they already have it.    

2) Evangelism – Nagel says that people moan about how few folks post to the mailing list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies occur. In the message board this is exactly what happens. Its founder pleas on the board for more subscribers and says it’s a helpless task as he posts the most of the topics. At this stage the boards are in danger of failure due to a disproportionate effort in input. The cause is that there are too few members. A post is added asking for suggestions which ends up in members advertising the site on other cricket message boards. I think this part of Nagel’s mailing lifecycle should include an alternative option of failure. 

3) Growth – The message boards experience growth throughout the off season. This is helped because it coincides with England’s ashes tour and many high profile changes in the Yorkshire setup (lots of posts on these topics). In January 2007 the site reports 83,228 hits from 5,084 people. This indicates plenty of activity from users, although this isn’t reflected in the number of posts (about 60 in January, most with around 20 replies) suggesting plenty of people ‘lurking’. This isn’t such a problem as there are new posts daily which must be fuelling the lurking. This could have a ‘window shopping’ effect where someone who regularly reads the posts daily decides to start participating. 

4) Community – With certain members contributing daily friendships are formed. This is shown for example with regular members wishing each other a happy Christmas, and also by giving friendly advice on away game accommodation for the upcoming season. There is plenty of input with the founder and users managing to come up with ideas to raise money to sponsor players. Also the site (from December 2006) started to do regular player interviews, with questions coming from members through the message boards. This group behaviour is strong and positive. 

5) Discomfort with diversity– This is where the similarities with Nagel’s life cycle end. Should the site have reached its critical mass already then this stage may never happen, if it has then the site can probably be adjudged as a success.  

6) Smug Complacency and stagnation or Maturity – Maturity would apply here. The site seems to have levelled off with a few daily posts at the present time, indicating users are near stage 4. 

Blog Analysis

In this weeks tutorial we had a discussion in groups on critical thinking. To assist in this we used an online article called “Generation raised on Internet comes of age – Online interaction considered just normal part of life” (by Martha Irvine, Dec 2004) about how younger generations are more ‘tech-savvy’ than previous generations (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6645963).  

 

At first hand the article seems to stand up, with opinion backed up with respectably quoted sources. But further analysis shows that the article’s focus on the younger generation has a stereotypical bias. It discusses how the generation brought up on the internet are now using it more and more on many aspects of their life, from job hunting, to dating, to paying bills. Whilst there are many popular sites which support this argument, it doesn’t mean that the people using them are predominantly the younger generation.

 

Research has shown that social networking sites which might be perceived as a young persons quirk, is actually just as popular with older generations. (http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1019)

 

The article contradicts itself with a graph showing percentage of people with internet by age, and another which displays average minutes per month by age. The graph shows that there is little difference between the younger and older generations when it comes to internet access; and that with internet usage, there is an increase the amount of time spent online the older the generation is (with a steady drop off after 35-44 age group).

 

I would argue that whilst the younger generation has been brought up with the internet as a way of life, the older generation has embraced and familiarised themselves with it, and have always been the leading generation. A study back in 2001 by Jupiter MMXI shows this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1500668.stm). This could be down to a having a greater disposable income.

 

Whichever generation is perceived to incorporate the Internet into their daily lives the most, it will always be a platform used by all regardless.