Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 6. ANALYZING THE TALK.ABORTION NEWSGROUP 98
Table 6.10: Correlation between Density Scores and Characteristics of Authors
and Threads
Author Characteristics Thread Characteristics
Measure Abortion Metacomm. Abortion Metacomm.
Density Density Density Density
Number of Messages ;0:16 0:27 0:10 ;0:14
Number of Threads ;0:12 0:25 0:10 ;0:14
Number of Days ;0:09 0:19 0:15 ;0:19
Spread of Days ;0:06 0:21 0:12 ;0:14
reliability tests for the measure conducted (see Appendix B on page 163).
As indicated in Table 6.10, frequency of authorship is strongly and positively correlated
with a higher average metacommunication density. Further, threads with
fewer messages, occurring over fewer days and featuring fewer authors are more
likely to have messages with higher metacommunication densities. More frequent
authors are more likely to contribute messages talking about the newsgroup and
the newsgroup’s participants than less frequent authors, and to contribute these
messages in shorter threads featuring fewer authors. Although the relationships
are statically weaker, there is also evidence to indicate that frequent authors are
less likely to contribute messages high in abortion content. The negative correlations
shown in Table 6.10 indicate that it is the less frequent authors who are more
likely to contribute messages high in abortion density.
Further evidence of these finding is shown in Table 6.11 on the following page
and Table 6.12 on page 100. Very frequent authors have a lower mean abortion
density than one time authors. The highest average abortion density is found in the
frequent and occasional authors. Correspondingly, very frequent authors have a
mean metacommunication density score more than twice that of any other author
group. The threads most likely to attract abortion content are those with many
messages. Short threads are highest in metacommunication density.
The findings concerning abortion and metacommunication density call into question
the quality of the discussion in the talk.abortion newsgroup. If the most frequent
contributors – who are responsible for the great bulk of the conversation –
are the least likely to contribute messages related to the topic at hand, the quality
of the entire conversation is most certainly reduced. At the same time, however, it
is encouraging to see that the frequent and occasional authors contribute the high-