Message board has been considered as the first application that applied the concept of Web 2.0 and hence has established the history of the World Wide Web. In order to understand the behaviour of message board users plenty of researchers have focused on this research area. In this book's nine chapters the author provides a comprehensive study and analysis of user behaviour in message boards from different perspectives. This will serve as an important milestone, helping to direct future research on message board analysis or online user behaviour, as well as helping us to understand basic interactions among users in online message boards.
Jenny Arendholz provides a systematic introduction to her study in Chapter 1. She then answers descriptive questions about the technologies and social prerequisites and mechanisms of communication in online message boards in Chapters 2 (Communication via Networks I: A Technical Perspective) and 3 (Communication via Networks II: A Social Perspective). In addition the key concepts of interpersonal relations have been defined and clustered in Chapters 4 (Interpersonal Relations I: The Origins of Politeness, Face and Facework) and 5 (Interpersonal Relations II: Putting (Im) Politeness in an Integrative Perspective), including the issues of politeness, impoliteness, rudeness and flaming behaviour in message board.
Chapter 6 (Prelude to the Analysis: Gathering Contextual Factors) is the empirical part of the book; here the author discusses contextual factors, which need to be included when evaluating users’ online behaviour. Finally, the keystone of the study is presented in Chapters 7 (Analyzing Online Message Boards I: Thread Starts) and 8 (Analyzing Online Message Boards II: Thread Interaction), which illustrates mechanisms for the establishment and the negotiation of interpersonal relations. The conclusion of the book is provided in Chapter 9, which summarizes and evaluates the results of the empirical part with the consideration of previous chapters.
This book is suitable for readers who want to understand the history and structure of message boards, as well as those interested in online user behaviour. I also strongly recommend that researchers working in such areas as web intelligence, social networks analysis, online behaviour and cyber psychology regard this book as a must-read.
