Newcomer integration in online communities: Chronemics in asynchronous collaborative discussions

Abstract

Online knowledge building communities (OKBCs) continue to exist by constantly integrating newcomers. Previous research on newcomer integration focuses on participants’ behavior and discourse, while ignoring chronemics, i.e., the time-related features such as pauses and their role in communication. Pauses can either serve as reflection spaces within the asynchronous online discussion or can be associated to unrelated offline activities. We interviewed N = 40 members from different blogger OKBCs to better understand the role of pauses in asynchronous collaborative dialog, especially related to newcomer integration. Old-timers consider that newcomers take longer pauses in discussions than the average community members, or act as silent members. Also, newcomers with high frequency in contributions are more likely to be integrated. The findings suggest a close relationship between chronemics and newcomer integration in online communities. This qualitative study was validated by a quantitative study on N = 1431 members from five blogger communities and argues that chronemics can be used to predict newcomer integration in knowledge communities, which can be in turn perceived as collaborative environments for informal learning.