ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS AND "PUBLIC GOODS" EXPLANATIONS OF COLLABORATIVE MASS MEDIA Sheizaf Rafaeli School of Business Administration Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mount Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem ISRAEL Tel. 02-883106 Online: KBUSR@HUJIVM1.bitnet and Robert J. LaRose Department of Telecommunication Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824-1212 USA Tel. 517-355-4528 March, 1992 Dr. Rafaeli is an Assistant Professor at the School of Business Administration, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. LaRose is an Associate Professor at the Department of Telecommunication, Michigan State University. The authors wish to acknowledge their gratitude for support provided by Michigan State University's Communication Technology Laboratory, the Northern Telecom University Interaction Program, and the Rekanati Fund. ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS AND "PUBLIC GOODS" EXPLANATIONS OF COLLABORATIVE MASS MEDIA ABSTRACT Collaborative mass media are a new type of mass communications medium in which the audience acts both as the source and the receiver of the message. Theories of discretionary data base contributions and critical mass theory offer parallel, but in some ways distinct, explanations for the success of collaborative media. The present research compared the predictions of these two perspectives in the context of a national survey of public electronic bulletin board systems. The study documented the nature and extent of electronic bulletin board use and compared seemingly conflicting predictions about the success of collaborative media based on the two theoretical perspectives. File contribution levels and system adoption rates were both found to be directly related to a measure of symmetry in user participation. Content diversity was directly related to contribution levels, but not to overall adoption levels. The results provided limited support for discretionary data base theory. ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS AND "PUBLIC GOODS" EXPLANATIONS OF COLLABORATIVE MASS MEDIA Collaborative mass media systems, in which the audience is also the primary source of media content as well as its receiver, represent a new and significant departure from conventional mass media forms. They expand the very definition of mass media, from "one to many" to "many to many" communication. In the past, audience-generated mass media content has invariably been subjected to a considerable degree of editorial control and has generally constituted a relatively small percentage of total message system content. Contributions came from a such a small number of audience members that the participants were more properly regarded as symbols of the community of interest rather than a true embodiment of it. "Letters to the Editor" columns in newspapers and magazines and radio and television call-in programs are familiar examples. In contrast, new collaborative media mass forms rely almost exclusively upon contributions from a wide cross section of audience members, often with minimal editorial control. Electronic bulletin board systems, audiotext "chat lines" and videotext fora are three examples of emerging interactive mass communication systems in which the audience is also the source of the content. To understand these new media forms, we must understand the factors which prompt audience members to make the contributions needed to make them viable. Participation in such media is paradoxical, after all. They are available to all members in a community of interest, regardless of whether the individual consumers contribute themselves, and consumption of the medium does not diminish what is available to anyone else. Since no single individual is required to contribute to the content of the message system in order to benefit from it, the "rational consumer" might be expected to adopt the strategy of consuming the medium without making contributions. Yet, if no one contributed there would soon be no medium to consume! It thus seems that interactivity itself elicits behavior that transcends the predictions of models of "rational" economic consumption of information (Rafaeli, 1990; Rafaeli and Ritchie, 1991). More formally, this is the dilemma of so-called "public goods" (Barry & Hardin, 1982). How much, why, and when do people contribute to interactive mass media? How can we predict, and eventually increase, sharing of ideas, information, intellectual property, and cognitive work among peers in communities defined by shared communication environments? Two theoretical perspectives have emerged recently which promise to extended our understanding of interactive mass media forms which rely on the participation of their audiences. Thorn and Connolly (1987, 1990) developed a theory of discretionary data bases from the notion of public goods and used it to predict rates of contribution to stores of information shared within an organization. In a series of laboratory experiments, they found that the lower the perceived value of the information and the less symmetrical the benefits to users in a group, the lower the contribution levels. Furthermore, individuals contributed less as participation costs and group size increased. However, these results were limited to extremely small (four or eight person) groups and took place in a laboratory setting that more closely replicated small workgroup communication than a mass media context. Critical Mass theory (Markus, 1987, 1990) takes a parallel approach, also predicated on the public goods dilemma, which attempts to explain the growing adoption of interactive media in a community of interest until a state of near total participation, or universal access, comes to exist. The theory predicts that the chances of attaining universal access are inversely related to the resource contributions -- in terms of skill, effort or cost -- required of users. On the other hand, the greater the heterogeneity of interests and resources found among members of a community, the greater the chance of achieving universal access. Task interdependence, centralization of resources, group size and geographic dispersion are hypothesized to be directly related to heterogeneity and hence to adoption. Critical mass was initially conceptualized with the problem of adoption of interpersonal communication media -- such as the telephone and electronic mail -- in mind, but the public goods argument on which it is based would seem to apply equally well to collaborative mass media systems. The two theories thus share common underlying assumptions about human behavior in contexts in which collaborative behavior is required to create a communications medium. They both address the same general problem of explaining participation in interactive media that are subject to the dilemma of public goods. Both paradigms have matching predictions for one key set of variables relating to the demands placed on the user. The more effort, skill, or monetary cost involve, the less the participation levels. The two approaches also differ in some important aspects. Their independent and dependent variables, units of analysis and the nature of their predictions are somewhat distinct. Thorn and Connolly's theory of discretionary data bases focuses on individual contribution levels as the dependent variable of interest, operationalized in terms of the percentage of transactions in which subjects choose to contribute information. For Markus, the dependent variable is the collaborative adoption rate in a community of interest, or the percentage of the community that has adopted the innovation in question. At a purely operational level, the distinction is simply that critical mass focuses on the percentage of a community that uses a collaborative medium, while the discretionary data base paradigm examines the subset of users who also make contributions to the content of the medium. Presumably, there is also a difference in the time order of the two outcomes. Initial adoption behavior -- including the purchase of necessary hardware and software, obtaining the necessary access codes, logging onto the system for the first time, etc. -- can be expected to precede contribution behavior. This distinction may in turn explain the differences in independent variables. The value of information and the symmetry of benefits are qualities that can perhaps best be sampled after initial access has been obtained through the process of adoption, hence their absence in critical mass theory. Still, it is reasonable to expect that users form perceptions of these qualities even before initial adoption, so that they could be expected to influence the adoption decision as well. Note that the critical mass approach makes the opposite prediction regarding the role of group size. If larger communities are also more heterogeneous, then critical mass theory predicts that universal access is more likely to be achieved in larger communities. Indeed, in this view participation is not just directly related to group size, it is exponentially related to the number of participants (cf. Markus, 1987). Thorn and Connolly (1990, p. 227) argue that large systems reduce the expectation of reciprocity, and consequently decrease contribution levels. Common sense offers a more homely construction: the more users there are, the more each user can safely assume that "someone else will do the job." This could even be a positive factor when making an adoption decision. When considering whether to...
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