ABSTRACT:
The study of online community participation often categorizes behaviors as active or passive. Because information systems scholars view online communities as fluid organizations, the active-passive heuristic often misses the richer nuances of participation behaviors. We develop the visibility-cost framework (VCF) of online community participation, integrating eight participation behaviors that are essential for sustaining committed membership and user activity in online discussion communities. Based on commitment theory, we conduct an empirical study of Reddit users and illustrate how three forms of commitment impact participation on subreddits. Results of the study identify influences of affective commitment on lower-cost behaviors, continuance commitment on lower-visibility and higher-cost behaviors, and normative commitment on higher-visibility and higher-cost behaviors. We also highlight the relationship between lower-cost and higher-cost behaviors at each visibility level. The VCF expands the ability to increase online community participation by enabling targeted interventions that match specific commitment types to desired participation behaviors.
Key words and phrases: Online community, community participation, user behavior, online visibility, participation cost, community commitment, discussion communities, threaded discussion, Reddit