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When Internet Really Connects Across Space: Communities of Software Developers in Vkontakte Social Networking Site

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Social Informatics (SocInfo 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 10540))

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Abstract

Following the discussion on the role of Internet in the formation of ties across space, this paper seeks to supplement recent findings on prevalence of location-dependent preferential attachment online. We look at networks of online communities specifically aimed at development of location-independent ties. The paper focuses on the 25 largest communities of software developers in the leading Russian social networking site VKontakte, one of the communities being studied in depth. Evidence suggests that membership and friendship ties are overwhelmingly cross-city and even cross-country, while an in-depth analysis gives ground to assume that, commenting and liking in such communities might also be location-independent. This group case study provides some insights into a nature of professional networking and shows independence of the three networks: the friendship network as a means of group identification, the commenting network as an advice-giving tool, and the liking network as a result of approval by occasional visitors.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Basic Research Program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Internet Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, 55/2 Sedova Street, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

    Olessia Koltsova, Sergei Koltсov & Yadviga Sinyavskaya

Authors
  1. Olessia Koltsova
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  2. Sergei Koltсov
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  3. Yadviga Sinyavskaya
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Olessia Koltsova .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

    Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    Afra Mashhadi

  3. University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Taha Yasseri

Appendix

Appendix

Fig. 3.
figure 3

Likes on posts, C# group. Vertices: individuals. Size: in-degree. Vertices with 0 in-degree not labeled. Arrows indicate direction of liking

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Fig. 4.
figure 4

Likes on posts, C# group. Vertices: individuals. Size: in-degree. Vertices with 0 in-degree not labeled. Arrows indicate direction of liking

Full size image

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Koltsova, O., Koltсov, S., Sinyavskaya, Y. (2017). When Internet Really Connects Across Space: Communities of Software Developers in Vkontakte Social Networking Site. In: Ciampaglia, G., Mashhadi, A., Yasseri, T. (eds) Social Informatics. SocInfo 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10540. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67256-4_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67256-4_34

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67255-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67256-4

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