ISSUE 5—Heroes or hoverers? A place for all in online communities

The lead up to the Australian general election on 7 September has seen frenzied social media activity by major political leaders. Both  main contenders for the leadership, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbot, through their active social media presence have acknowledged the importance of social media for community engagement.

Who has been more successful? Kevin Rudd, with his longer term social media presence, has attracted more followers. Sustained presence and interaction are important for building and maintaining a community of followers. The Sydney Morning Herald explores this issue at  http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-marketing/election-showcases-power-of-social-media-20130815-2rxkn.html#ixzz2eAnNfxbV

In the US, President Obama’s success with his social media campaign is seen as a function of with his long—3.5 year—social media presence in contrast with candidate Romney's much shorter one.  

The politicians are all demonstrating active leadership on online communities. But what of the other end of the scale–the not visibly active, seemingly dormant ‘lurkers’ referred to in this blog by commenter Rox?

Can we count those peripheral participants as part of the community?

Communication experts agree that lurkers are important. According to Kate Crawford of the University of Sydney, lurkers ‘contribute a mode of receptiveness that encourages others to make public contributions’.

It’s clear from the work of both Crawford and Australia’s Listening Project that, like real-world communities, online communities have their active leaders and their inactive, peripheral participants. All play significant roles.

Here is a multimedia metaphor for the interaction between online followers and online leaders—a large-group rendition of the Cup Song. (Don’t know about the Cup Song? This is a viral YouTube-activity that was unleashed with the release of the movie Pitch Perfect.)

This rendition highlights the importance of the leader for keeping a community together–the leader sets the rhythm for interaction, maintains the momentum, and creates a platform for powerful collaboration. But without her followers, there would only be silence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFtfk0bZVRM

Want to know more?

On Obama vs Romney social media use, see http://www.policymic.com/articles/10072/why-obama-is-dominating-mitt-romney-on-facebook-twitter-and-pinterest )

See Kate Crawford’s  article,  ‘ Disciplines of listening in social media’ at

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/Crawford%20Continuum%20following%20you_0.pdf

For The Listening Project: http://www.thelisteningproject.net/

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