Data memo 2 revised

In this data memo, I looked at one week of activity on Sowerby and Luff's Fully Optamised Social Media Network. I examined from October 5-10, 2013. Though I only examined five days, it was quite a lot of data to process (26 posts, 25 comments, 9 comment likes, and 11 post likes). This was a particularly active week. All data was gathered at 12:43 pm Alaska Standard Time on October 10, 2013. The reason for choosing these dates was because of a deadline, but also included the fact that Sowerby and Luff released epsiode 92 of Fat Chance early: the episode was released on Friday instead of Sunday. Interestingly enough, this fact was not discussed by the community. The post that Brian Luff made the post announcing the new episode's release, it receive several likes but only one comment. This post to me seems really important, and would potentially merit more discussion, such as people coming back to it after listening to the episode and discussing things, but few people acknowledge the post and move on to discuss other things in the group.

As the pie chart below shows, over 72% (37% of which are posts and 35% are comments) of the communication that happened in the group this past week happened actively: no passive liking.

This pie chart shows the percentage of what activity was from October 5 to October 10, 2013

I view liking as a passive form of interaction, because it does not fuel conversation in the group. The act serves only as a means of showing approval or support for a post or comment in the group, and as can be seen by the data from the pie chart, the majority of the discourse happens with new posts and comments. Though, as can be seen in the percentages, posts are the largest amount of activity in the group. There were several posts during this period that received no attention (no likes or comments) and there were some posts that only received likes. In general, the group chooses many ways to communicate about the material being presented in the group.

Active communication in the group, even if it was of a sarcastic nature, shows not only the interplay of audience with the show, but how the audience interacts with each other. If someone is repeatedly ignored or is infrequently recognized, this may point to the fact that this person does not post or comment much and is not an active part of the group. There is often a larger attention paid to the members of the group who post frequently or have posts featured on the show, or posts concerning the show. This attention, may point towards the idea that the group is seeking attention from Sowerby and Luff, or that they are merely commenting on an advertised story. Furthermore, it may show that the people who are posting the most and receive the most attention, may be more in touch with the subject matter that this particular affinity group is attracted to.

Furthermore, the people who post more and receive more attention, increase their activity, and form, in a sense, a perceived identity of more "in-tuneness" with the group. This act forms a sort of prestige for these people, despite the fact that they are interacting in a fan group on Facebook for a comedy podcast. In fact, I found myself when reading through the posts, more tempted to look at the links and posts made by people who's names reoccured several times. I may have simply been searching for more data, but it also felt more important to look at their posts, perhaps in the misguided belief that the stories they posted would be featured in the show.

(I revised to update my data and discuss it more, and for general clarity)