Social Interaction Process Analysis of Bengalis' on Orkut®

Introduction

Human to human interaction through the shared use of Inter-supported technologies is known as Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC; Herring, 2004). CMC has long been adopted for both instrumental and social interactions in organizational contexts (Steinfield & Steinfeld, 1986). However, only recently attention is being diverted to computer-mediated social communication (Ellison, Steinfeld, & Cliff, 2007; Honeycutt & Herring, 2009; Peña & Hancock, 2006). In fact, with the exponential growth of popularity of social network sites (SNSs), such as Facebook^®, MySpace^®, and Orkut^®, more research is required to understand different aspects of users’ behaviors . On SNSs, users create profiles, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others primarily through text-based communication (boyd & Ellison, 2007).

In recent years, our social mobility has gone up for various reasons. Both forced and voluntary migrations affect immigrant population socioemotionally (Jacobsen, 2002). CMC, however, plays an important role in creating and strengthening a sense of community among immigrants of the same linguistic and/or ethnic origin (Hiller & Franz, 2004). The internet in general, and SNSs in particular, offer migrants a new resource for the formation of social capital (Boase, et al., 2006; Ellison et al., 2007; Hiller & Franz, 2004). Social capital is broadly defined as the resources gathered through relationships among people (Coleman, 1988). However, very few studies have actually examined how immigrants benefit from using SNSs. It seems that inadequate empirical findings of users’ behavior on SNSs and popular mass media’s anecdotal reports on the bad aspects of these sites are some of the causes for some individuals’ and institutions’ unfavorable¹ attitudes towards SNSs. Although text-based CMC offers a potentially rich source of insight into human behavior, to date, I am not aware of any studies that have substantiated their findings by systematically analyzing actual content of the interaction that goes on these sites among immigrants.

This study addresses the fundamental question: What is it that interlocutors are doing (or intending to do) when they exchange messages on Orkut^®? In answering the question, the study proposes a new analytical method to analyze multi-dimensional aspects of communication. Drawing from pragmatics and conversation analysis, the new method investigates the interplay of CMC acts, interaction processes, and frequency of message exchanges in naturally-occurring text-based dyadic interactions of diasporic Bengalis² in a small university town in the Midwestern USA. This method will be useful for researchers trying to understand the meaning of text-based CMC across languages and CMC modes since the method was developed using empirical data. Additionally, the findings of the study help us understand how conversations on the social network site, Orkut^®, bring members of the immigrant community closer together to create a network which consequently provides social capital and socioemotional support to the members. Thus, the study helps us understand the benefits of conversations on SNSs in general.