Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 6. ANALYZING THE TALK.ABORTION NEWSGROUP 87
Table 6.4: Comparison of Messages to Threads and Days by Author Groups
Author Mean Mean
Group Messages Messages
Per Day Per Thread
Very Frequent 7.64 2.59
Frequent 3.95 6.89
Occassional 2.65 3.64
Infreqeunt 1.99 3.34
Very Infrequent 1.54 2.16
Two-time 1.26 1.44
One-time 1.00 1.00
F =15:86 F =14:82
p =0:00 p =0:00
a larger ratio of messages to threads may indicate a more intensive commitment
to dialogue and engagement than a smaller ratio. As shown in Table 6.4, very
frequent authors wrote an average of 2.59 messages per thread. The next three
categories of authors – frequent, occasional and infrequent – are all more likely to
write more intensively to threads than the frequent authors. The fact that frequent
authors, on average, wrote more than twice as many messages per thread than the
very frequent authors is especially noteworthy. This finding suggests that very
frequent have less of a commitment to sustained dialogue and discussion than the
other author types.
The second measure of author groups to be assessed is spread of days. Spread
of days (spread) refers to the number of days elapsing between the author’s first
posted message and last posted message. For example, given that one-time authors
by definition posted a single message, the spread associated with each of
them is zero, the minimum value of spread. The maximum theoretical value of
spread is the length of the study, 365 days. An author with a spread of 365 days
would have posted a message on both the first and last day of the study. Notice
that spread includes no assessment of the number of messages between the
first and last day posted. Spread is another indicator of an author’s breadth of
commitment to sustained participation in the newsgroup. A higher spread value
indicates a commitment to group participation over a longer range of time than