In Putnam’s piece, he argues a trend toward the decline in what he calls the social trust, particularly of the “generalized other.” Recognizing the threat this poses to civic engagement, he argues that a continued decline in social trust will lead to the erosion of social collaboration in all fields. Drawing from his research, he also noted that this decline was particularly evident among youth populations. Considering the target population of our social networking map, this issue is particularly relevant to the success of our project. As with any social network, there is a certain degree of risk in joining it. The objectives of the map would obviously be facilitated by included the most contact information. At the same time, increasing the amount of contact information—particularly when given by an individual—increases the risk factor. How can we mediate such risks so as to reduce such disincentives for participation? One solution to the privacy issue of individuals would be to personalize privacy settings, which would make the user feel most in control of their experience on the site. What other disincentives for participation are we going to run into and what are different avenues can we use to increase the sense of social trust felt by users of the map?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think Zoe has a very interesting and important point about personal information and the risk that it may pose when posted in a public forum. I think privacy settings are a proven answer to this problem, and may set individuals or organizations at ease when participating in the social network. It is imperative to our network that we answer issues like these to increase social trust and participation because without active members the network is nothing.
ReplyDeleteAnother issue that comes to mind for the network is how to display participation for an individual or group. Content or activity is what many people brought up as their reason for visiting Facebook so often, but for a smaller network like ours it can hurt us as well. If members come to the site expecting to see activity when there is none then they may be less inclined to visit another time. I think we have to very careful in how we display activity on the site because it can show whether or not stuff is happening. If activity becomes quickly dated or old then users might not feel inclined to post anything new again, and then the network will die. I think some form of motivation to post (like status for Facebook) must be intrinsic in the development of the network to give it the feeling of an active and working community. Because sometimes what people think is happening is more important than what is actually happening, or at least for social networking.
I want to thank Zoe for making such a great point with her post. Putnam raised a very interesting question regarding the threats to civic engagement, especially with regards to trust. Keeping in mind the idea of how me must establish trust, I think it will be paramount if WE are able to be the ones to initially make a positive trust basis for everyone who uses the map. I think achieving this goal will be vital in making our map a success, and more of an op-in community where people will be seeking us out instead of vice versa.
ReplyDeleteTo both Zoe and Marcus's point, I definitely agree that having different types of security settings will aid in gaining people's trust. Yet, i don't think that this alone will solve the trust issues that many people and organizations will have. Even from what we've experienced so far in getting outside organizations to answer our questions, the main issues seems to be skepticism. I think to combat this issue we should have some type of news feed, blog, or etc... to show how different organizations have successfully matched with people, volunteers, and other organizations. By allowing people who are new to the map to automatically see some of the great results of being a part of this community, my thought is that they will then be more likely to trust the legitimacy of this project. We all know that this is an amazing tool for the Somerville community, but the Somerville community isn't necessarily going to be taking our class and receiving the same information we are. I really think that it is our job to come up with ways in which we can share all the great aspects of the map, by showing how people have taken advantage of them all, and then, how the newcomers can also take advantage of everything.
Zoe's post is very interesting and relevant, as she pointed out. To address her questions, I think it is important to let organizations themselves register on the network, instead of us putting their information on the network for them. This way they can put as much information as they want (must like FB) and only show certain information to certain people.
ReplyDeleteI'd also like to add that I think it's interesting that in Putnam's piece he says that the younger audience, in particular, would see this decline. I feel that it would be the opposite and that an older audience would be more concerned and therefore we'd see more of a decline with them. It seems like the youth is always posting things, regardless of their privacy. Just a note...