Structural Differentiation in Social Media

This book explores community dynamics within social media. Using Wikipedia as an example, the volume explores communities that rely upon commons-based peer production. Fundamental theoretical principles spanning such domains as organizational configurations, leadership roles, and social evolutionary theory are developed. In the context of Wikipedia, these theories explain how a functional elite of highly productive editors has emerged and why they are responsible for a majority of the content. It explains how the elite shapes the project and how this group tends to become stable and increasingly influential over time. Wikipedia has developed a new and resilient social hierarchy, an adhocracy, which combines features of traditional and new, online, social organizations. The book presents a set of practical approaches for using these theories in real-world practice.

Introduction.- Part I: Structural Differentiation and Social Media: Theoretical Framework.- Macro-Structural Perspectives on Social Differentiation and Organizational Evolution in Online Groups.- Specifying a Wikipedia-centric Explanatory Model for Online Group Evolution and Structural Differentiation.- Social Structuration Online: Entropy and Social Systems.- Analytic Investigation of a Structural Differentiation Model for Social Media Production Groups.- Part II: Configurational Change Phases and Motors in Online Collaboration.- The Foundations of a Theoretical Model for Organizational Configurations and Change in Online Collaborative Processes.- Organizational Configurations and Configurational Change.- A Synthesized Theoretical Framework for Motors Driving Organizational Configurational Change.- Wikipedia Evolution: Trends and Phases.- Breakpoints and Concurrent Factors.- Part III: Future theoretical and practical directions.- Conclusions.- Appendix A: Data Collection, Management,Pre-Processing, and Analysis.- Appendix B: Historical and Media Analysis of Wikipedia's Evolutionary Context.- Appendix C: Advantages and Disadvantages of Stepwise Segmented Regression Analysis.