Swaminathan Nagarathinam-A study on Online Friendship Paradox of Social Journalism educators

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A Study on Online Friendship Paradox of
Social Journalism Educators

By Dr. Swaminathan Nagarathinam
Associate Professor
Madurai Kamaraj University
Facebook.com/snagarathinam

Company Proprietary and Confidential Copyright Info Goes Here Just Like
This

SOCIAL JOURNALISM EDUCATORS A Facebook Group 2

• A group for Social Journalism Educators (SJE)

• They are teaching social media and integrating it into their
journalism curricula at the high school or higher education level.

• It consists of 310 members mostly from USA. Raju
Narisetti, Sree Srinivasan, Vadim Lavrusik are few prominent
members.

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SOCIAL JOURNALISM EDUCATORS A Facebook Group 3

• They discuss about…
• Facebook
• Twitter
• And other social media websites
• Many of them using these features for their classes to teach
social media.
• They allow only the teachers of social media into the group
• Association of Communication and Media Educators (ACME) in
India. Manish Verma Promoted 149 members group.
• ACT-TNP also having a members Facebook page.

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FRIENDSHIP PARADOX A Phenomenon of Friendship Network 4

• Most people believe that they have more friends than
their friends have.

• The friendship paradox is the phenomenon that
most people have fewer friends than their friends
have, on average.

• This phenomenon can be applied more generally to
social networks including Facebook.

• In spite of its paradoxical nature, the phenomenon is
true in real life also.

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• It is essential that friendship is a two way thing: if X is
Y’s friend, then Y is X’s friend.

• If you count how many friends "X" has, and comparing
it to the average of how many friends X's friends
have. The friends of "X" will have chance to have
more friends than X’s friends on average.

• Everybody else now knows someone more popular
than they are.

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• Average number of friends – An example.

• X

• X is having 3 friends. The average
number of friends of X’s friends is 5.3
(16/3).

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• Epidemiologists use friendship paradox phenomenon
to identify the new infections.

• People who are more connected to one another and
are therefore more likely to exposed to diseases
infections like the flu early.

• Instead of going through the random sample on public
epidemiologists prefer to go the people who have
more number of friends.

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• If you have more number of people you will have
more exposure

• It may be an exposure to disease

• Or Knowledge

• This presentation about knowledge (infection) sharing
among group members… and not disease infection.

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Hypotheses Research Questions RQs 9

Obviously the average number of friends in a facebook
group is higher than the number of friends we have

1. Social Journalism Educators have a higher
preference for their specific professional affiliation.

RQ-1: Do SJE Group members prefer to post their
questions to random choice of their friends
or in SJE facebook group?

RQ-2: What is the reason behind this getting
connection?

RQ-3: What are the issues of knowledge
they have been sharing?

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Hypotheses Research Questions RQs 10

2. Professional affiliation has higher chance to get
professional information.

RQ-4: Do the SJE Group members like to answer
the irrespective of they know members
personally posts or not ?

RQ-5: Did the SJE Group members professionally
equip by the answers of the group members?

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METHODOLOGY Survey among USA Journalism Educators & Content Analysis 11

• The methodology consists of two parts. The Content
Analysis through the observation of discussion
threads of Face book Social Journalism Educators.

• Another one was an online survey conducted among
the Social Journalism Educators of USA.

• July 21, 2011 to December 9, 2011. Total number of
156 discussions (Units) of 44,672 words were
analyzed for identifying the common issues and
factors of the forum.

• 16 American educators responded to the survey.
Through SURVEYMONKEY.COM

This

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Survey 12

• 62.5 per cent of the educators (respondents) in
the SJE forum belong to 30 - 39 age group.

• 87.5 per cent of the SJEs teach social media at
school level. 50 per cent of them teach graduate
level also. Only 12.5 per cent of them teach post
graduate level.

• The group consists of 310 members. Only 50
percent of the respondents met less than 10
persons in person the group members earlier.

• 81.3 per cent respondents did not meet anyone
in real life after introduction in face book.
Friendship Paradox works here.

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• 75 percent of the respondent members feel they
have been professionally equipped by the
discussion in the group (RQ-5).

• 87.5 per cent of the educators say that they are
keen in answering the questions if fellow group
members post in the group (RQ-4).

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• Another key finding that the members of the
group had preferred to post their information in
need of clarification in the group and they
negated of going a random choice of other
educators who are not the members of this
specialized group (RQ-1).

• 87.5 per cent of the members responded that
they prefer SJE face book group for clarifications.

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• Another result of the survey indicates that 87 per
cent of the Social Journalism Educators face
book group member surely intended to answer or
respond to the queries of members whether they
know him/her personally or not (RQ-4).

• Most of the members (75 per cent) consider the
group meant for knowledge sharing. They also
said that being in the group is “Feel-Good” feel
for them (RQ-2).

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• The members replied for a question that they are
in the group to know anyone who teaches the
same they teach.

• They liked to have an appropriate peer group.
Members opinioned that the group enables them
in exchanging class room ideas with like-minded
professors, sharing resources, strategies and
experiences.

• They had a feel good when they get support, get
know clarifications, advice from the group.

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• They are interested in having meaningful
conversations. A member opined in the survey
that he is in the network for avoiding re-inventing
the wheel.

• The group members satisfied and professionally
equipped by the comments and answers to the
queries raised by them. Members responded that
they posted 3-5 questions and they received
good responses.

• A member opined that every time he posts, he
receives useful information (RQ-5).

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• The members preferred to post their clarifications
and doubts in the SJE group for its relative
anonymity. One said that no one will judge him
for asking a 'stupid question.’

• For a question on the belief of SJE members on
volunteering of fellow members to answer the
questions whether they know each of them
personally or not, members expressed that the
group members have been quick to share expert
advice.

• A member shared opinion that he has been
impressed by the generosity of strangers
(Friendship paradox works).

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RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Content Analysis 19

• In a content analysis of threads of Social
Journalism Educators (RQ-3) reveals that
Resource Sharing (16.98%), Advice / Suggestion
/ Information Requests (11.94%), Forthcoming
Events (10.69%), Information on Class Room
Activities (10.06%) Teaching Tools
(6.28%), Technical Information on Social Media
(5.66%) and Curriculum (4.4%) dominate the
conversation.

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• Courses (3.70%), on attended event (2.51%),
career opportunities (3.14%), text books (2.51%),
research (2.51%), feedback on a teaching work
(2.51%), Co-curricular (2.51%), and on ethical
issues (2.51%) also got a place at some
important level.

• Issues on Plagiarism (1.25%), Privacy (1.25%),
policy (1.25%) and tips for journalists (0.62%)
also discussed.

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• On every discussion on seeking advice,
suggestion or information, the group received the
highest percentage (22.69%) of comments.
Information on Class room activity also received
21.71 per cent of comments. These two
important discussion threads also received the
highest per cent of Likes (25.49 and 21.07
percentages) also.

• Resource sharing conversation (8.55%) and
technical information (8.22%) received good
response of comments. Forthcoming events and
curriculum discussions are also received (6.25%
and 5.75% respectively) good comments.

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• An analysis of correlation coefficient reveals that
there is a strong positive linear correlation (0.866)
between Posts and Likes.

• There is a strong positive linear correlation
(0.940) between Comments and Likes for
comments.

• There is a positive linear correlation (0.676)
between the Posts and Comments.

• Likes for posts and Likes for comments are weak
(0.275) correlated.

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310

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• GOING BY CASES

• Katy Bartzen Culver raised a plagiarism issue
and she discussed that many (students) swear
that they've never been advised about what they
can and cannot pull verbatim from documentary
sources for stories and alt story forms.
• This post pulled a good response, many of the
teachers expressed on how to respond.

• Robert Quigley asked - Is there a textbook I
should be checking out? for writing for online
publications.
• Some suggested for practicals and less with
books some suggested books. For Gary Metzker
question, he received a comment quoting a right
book for his clarification.
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• Marcus Messner raised a question. Making a few
iPads available for students to share or giving an
iPad to every student.
• Max cacas said that only one iPhone and iPad is
enough for his friend to conduct a class.

• Jeremy Littau asked about the hardware
minimums for students who bring own device. To
answering the Esther Vargas replied about a pre-
syllabus survey among students.

• Ingrid Sturgis raised an ethical question about
using photos from social media pages of the
person being charged with the stabbing. Also
should we use the photos from the social media
pages of the person who was killed.

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• Robert Quigley said yes. And Peg Achterman
said that it is a bit like we used to do in the pre-
digital social networking days - asking to see
someone's yearbook to get photos of a
classmate....although so much more. It's a tough
one.

• Andy Price asked about the 'new' developments
and ideas in Social Media that you will be
introducing to your students this year.

• It has yielded a meaningful response with
ideas, practices and experiences.

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• Steve Klein shared his class room activity. He
surprised that NO ONE remembered that Osama
bin Laden had been killed (responses when I
mentioned it at the end of the exercise ranged
from, "Oh yeah!" to blank stares he wrote.

• Steve Fox answered that whenever he teaches
Introduction, he does a weekly Current Events
Quiz. Others also suggested how we overcome
from the issue.

• Doug Spoon asked about the copyright issues
involved with all this reblogging and other forms
of aggregation.
• Pamela Cytrynbaum explained that It's not
aggregation that's bad. It's stealing that's bad.

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• In an another conversation initiated by Doug
spoon, which yielded good response on
conducting social media classes alongwith writing
skills.

• Sue Burzynski Bullard used Twitter for her editing
class. she asked SJE to share the experiances
about how to use twitter again for a covering
Live events.

• Members suggested
www.twitvid.com, www.twitpic.com for further
continuation.

This


• Mark W. Smith suggested to teachers to create a
Facebook Page, just not use a personal profile to
interact with students. But this post received a
surprise answer - If you're a student living in
Missouri, you'd better not be Facebook friends
with any of your teachers – because that will
soon be against the law.

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OFFICIAL VIDEO OF FACEBOOK It works on friendship or friendly 34
experience

This

Thanks 35

Gutenberg introduced Printing Press

Zuckerberg introduced Face Book – We thank
both for their contributions.

This

36

Thank you so much

Dr.S.Nagarathinam
09600 930723

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