Social Stratification In Virtual Community

With the rise of the Internet, many scholars began to study the network society. Networksociety consists of two meanings of social studies. The first one is with the rise of the Internet,the network have great influence on the original social structure and social operating mechanism,the scholar need to study these influence. The second meaning is that people create virtualcommunity with the help of Internet technology in the network space. Manuel Castells describedthe impact on society with the rise of internet in his books. But research on the formation of thevirtual community is not as rich as impact on society with the rise of internet. The virtualcommunity brings a series of new research topics. In virtual community interpersonal interactionis no longer dependent on the body movements, facial expressions, language and intonation ofthe interaction terms of the real world, but through text, numbers and symbols. What kind of theinfluence on the participants in virtual community made by these changes? What kind of thecharacteristics does virtual community has? These questions need the academic answer.Peoples form various types of network society in cyberspace. The scholars usually call BBS,Internet forums and online games which based on the virtual interaction to maintain as virtualcommunities. These virtual communities attract many people participation by their distinctivesubject. Virtual communities reflect equal, open, non‐hierarchical system features which isdifferent from the hierarchical organizational forms of organizations with specialized, powerrating, rules and regulations, non‐personification and other features; Virtual communities alsoreflect users self‐organized and self‐managed features which is different from the real communitythat organized on the form of neighborhood committees, the owners committee. Thecharacteristics of virtual community organization reflect anonymous and equal spirits that meansknowledge, ideas is important when people communicate with each other in virtual community.In this paper, the research focus is the social stratification in virtual community. I am tryingto answer the question: What kind of factors make some participant in the virtual communityturn to the central figure in their virtual communities? In order to study the central phenomenonin the virtual community, scholars have used many means, including the matrix, the communitygraph, network diagrams and other methods. I believe that these methods are essentiallynetwork analysis which uses network centrality as a criterion of stratification in virtualcommunity. Through the analysis on the central phenomenon in virtual communities, I try toanswer what kind of factors or behaviors leads to central phenomenon in the participants ofvirtual communities.To answer these questions, I choose a virtual community for the study. I collected the data ofthis virtual community from the day it was found to February 1, 2010 to analyze what kind offactors led to the central phenomenon in virtual communities. Based on the current web anddatabase technology, I use the number of reply post the participant got as the rankings of theparticipant in the virtual community within this period. At the same time I put all users in thevirtual community into the characteristics as following: the number of fans, the number of postsgot refueled, the number of network main post, the number of users recommended, the number of violations, the number of posts got essence evaluations, registration days, the number offollowing post, more than six times recommended, quantity of friend. I collected statistical datawhich could get in these fields. Then I use the participant rankings in the virtual community asthe dependent variable and the participant other characteristics as the independent variablewhich include the number of fans, the number of posts got refueled, the number of networkmain post, the number of users recommended, the number of violations, the number of postsgot essence evaluations, registration days, the number of following post, more than six timesrecommended, quantity of friend. Through regression analysis, I found that the most explanatoryfactors about the rank of the participant in the virtual community are the fans number of theparticipant in this community, release number of the network main post, and the number of hisposts got refueled. Other factors including the time length the users registered in this community,whether active in the community for interaction, whether violating the virtual community rule donot have much impact on the rank of the participant in the virtual community. Further analysisshowed that reason for the users in virtual communities could acquire fans is that the fans couldget high quality messages from the post posted by the participant.Furthermore I do a textual analysis of the main post which gets lots of following post in thevirtual community. I get a conclusion that the reason of these main post get lots of reply is thesepost have relevant information and knowledge, reading these posts can give readers inspired andenhanced ideas in the relevant fields. Combined the conclusions with statistical analysis above, Iget a conclusion that participant's post in the virtual community can provide knowledge andinformation to others is the reason why some participant can get social status in the virtualcommunity.The development of the network makes a new way to preserve and produce informationdifferent from the traditional way. The characteristic of network is open platform, ease of accessto knowledge and having extensive production of knowledge. The traditional approach topreserve and produce information is through library, professional groups, and dictation bymentor to apprentice and through specialization of producing knowledge. In the Internet era, onthe one hand information wants to be free, because the cost to release of information willcontinue to lower; the other hand, information wants to be more expensive, because it is sovaluable, in the right places the right information can change your life. The virtual community is asharing platform provided a low‐cost and convenient access to knowledge and informationsharing platform. In the virtual community through the mechanism of social stratification theparticipants can focus on key information. The mechanism of social stratification gives a solutionto the conflict of the proliferation of information and key information highlights.But the Internet, including virtual communities as a knowledge and information sharingplatform is incompatible with liberalism business logic in real world. The division of labor theory,the "invisible hand theory" (trading without the cost) and the utility value theory proved that themarket‐based economy is the most efficient economy. Furthermore the liberalism promote themarket economic logic to various aspects, including but not limited to land, money, labor,intellectual property and other fields. But the argument can be proved only through tangiblegoods as liberal scholars made. When market theories extended to land, money, and labormarket theories are met insurmountable obstacles. Similarly, the current intellectual propertytheory is also extended by the market model. I believe that this promotion with the marketmodel also encountered insurmountable obstacles as the market model extended to the land, money and labor. In the field of information, the market economy is the most efficient mode isstill to be proven.Karl Polanyi summarized organization of production and corresponding distribution patternsin human history in four categories: self‐sufficient pattern of production corresponds to theprinciple of householding; symmetric pattern of production organization corresponds to theprinciple of reciprocity; centricity model of production organization corresponds to theredistribution of production principles; market economic organization of production correspondsto the principle of the private pursuit of profit. Through the market to organize the allocation ofproduction and distribution of material wealth is the most efficient pattern. But the theoreticalmodel of market economic can't be proved in knowledge field. In the virtual world, we haveobserved a new production and distribution pattern, which opened to the volunteer to produceand its corresponding distribution is the shared principle that all participants, even withoutparticipation in production can use those results. The reasons for this phenomenon are many,including but not limited to the uncertainty of the future, the researcher's limited rationality andother reasons.Human society has entered the information age. Information and knowledge occupy moreand more important position in human life. Using technology‐institution‐civilization framework toanalyze the current era, the vision is that information technology has a breakthrough and hasdeeply affected people's lives but still be used market economy model designed for thetransaction of tangible products to handle. Some people questioned the market model ofproducing and distributing knowledge product. Open‐type production and shared distribution is aresponse to the question put forward.