Understanding interactions in virtual HIV communities: a social network analysis approach

This study investigated the driving mechanism of building interaction ties among the people living with HIV/AIDS in one of the largest virtual HIV communities in China using social network analysis. Specifically, we explained the probability of forming interaction ties with homophily and popularity...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shi, Jingyuan, Wang, Xiaohui, Peng, Tai-Quan, Chen, Liang
Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84879
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/42015
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:This study investigated the driving mechanism of building interaction ties among the people living with HIV/AIDS in one of the largest virtual HIV communities in China using social network analysis. Specifically, we explained the probability of forming interaction ties with homophily and popularity characteristics. The exponential random graph modeling results showed that members in this community tend to form homophilous ties in terms of shared location and interests. Moreover, we found a tendency away from popularity effect. This suggests that in this community, resources and information were not disproportionally received by a few of members, which could be beneficial to the overall community.