What Makes Social Networks Work

Another student in my Media and Politics course made what I thought was a very smart comment during this morning’s lecture.
We were talking about what motivates readers to post political comments on blogs or social networking sites — or just on online articles in general.
We looked at the 800+ comments on a story from a supposed conservative columnist as to why Sarah Palin should withdraw from the Republican ticket.  Other examples were viewer responses to CBS news anchor Katie Couric’s recent sit-down interview with Palin and messages from supporters posted to facebook.com campaign groups.
The student said that people join in discussion boards on various sites, because, in a way, they feel comfortable in that environment, as if they are having a familiar, “dinner table” conversation with someone else rather than the reality of the situation: they’re communicating with someone they’ve probably never met and probably never will meet; someone who might live thousands of miles away and, with whom, they share little in common aside from an interest in a particular news story or viewpoint.