Cliff Lampe

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Michigan State University

College of Communication arts and Sciences

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Assistant Professor
Michigan State University
Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media
lampecli (at the ole) msu (dot) edu

Research Interests

Online communities
I'm interested in the structure and effects of many-to-many interactions that occur online. These interactions can take the form of email distribution lists, Web discussion systems, massively multi-player online role-playing games, Usenet newsgroups and more. These flora of interactions are interesting to me because they involve elements of self-governance in an environment with few cues that we normally depend on. Online communities I have worked with most are Slashdot, Everything2, and Facebook.

The current work I'm doing is related to cycles of participation in online communities, showing how users change their involvement over time, and how they decide to exit their online groups.

Recommender and Reputation Systems
An increasingly common method of reducing the information overload associated with online interactions is to allow participants to rate content, services or other users in order to provide feedback. This has a first order effect of providing information to the larger community, but is also a useful governance mechanism in online communities. My work in ratings system has focused on Slashdot and NewsTrust.

Online Social Capital
Can interactions that take place online supplement or replace other more traditional interactions that led to the production of social capital? Social capital has benefits both to the individual and the community, but depends on persistent interactions between participants that can lead to relationships.

One way I'm investigating this is with Nicole Ellison and Charles Steinfield looking at Facebook, and how use of this social network site can influence the existence of bridging social capital. Another project involved in using ICT to foster social capital work is our Kellogg funded project to connect rural youth to their home communities.

Online Journalism
Another line of research I'm pursuing is the intersection between news and journalism. This is formative work, looking at the effects of observing online discussions on impressions of news stories.

Online communities for doing good
I'm a big believer that new technologies should serve a public good. To that end, I've been working on a project called the Great Lakes Wiki with Dave Poulson in the Journalism department. This is a wiki that is intended to allow people from across the Great Lakes Region to share their stories and cover stories that aren't typically handled by the mainstream media.

Courses

Spring 2008

• TC100: Introduction to the Information Society
• TC201: Introduction to Telecommunication Technology
• TC891: New Media for Non-Profits

Fall 2007

• TC462b: Telecommuting and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work

Spring 2007

• TC100: The Information Society

Fall 2006

• TC201: Introduction to Telecommunication Technology
• JRN485: Citizen Journalism
  

Spring 2006

• TC100: The Information Society
• TC960: Media and Technology

Dissertation

Lampe, C. Ratings Use in an Online Discussion System: The Slashdot Case School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006, 180.

PDF version - approximately 2.8MB

Peer-Reviewed Papers and Proceedings

Ellison, N. Steinfield, C. & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook 'friends': Exploring the relationship between college students' use of online social networks and social capital. In Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (3)

Lampe, C., Johnston, E. and Resnick, P., Follow the Reader: Filtering Comments on Slashdot. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), (San Jose, CA, 2007), ACM Press. [Abstract and PDF]

Lampe, C., Ellison, N. and Steinfield, C., A Familiar Face(book): Profile Elements as Signals in an Online Social Network. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (San Jose, CA, 2007), ACM Press. [PDF]

Lampe, C., Ellison, N. and Steinfield, C., A Face(book) in the Crowd: Social Searching vs. Social Browsing. in ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, (Banff, Canada, 2006), ACM Press. [Abstract and PDF]

Hedstrom, M., Lee, C., Olson, J. and Lampe, C. "The old version flickers more" : Digital preservation from the user's perspective. The American archivist, 69 (1). 159-187. [Abstract]

Lampe, C. and Johnston, E., Follow the (Slash) dot: Effects of Feedback on New Members in an Online Community. in International Conference on Supporting Group Work, GROUP '05, (Sanibel Island, FL, 2005), ACM Press.[Abstract and PDF]

Lampe, C. and Resnick, P., Slash(dot) and burn: distributed moderation in a large online conversation space. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), (Vienna, Austria, 2004), ACM Press, 543-550. [Abstract and PDF]

Presentations and misc.

Lampe, C. and Garrett, R.K., It’s All News to Me: The Effect of Instruments on Ratings Provision. in Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (CD-ROM), January 4-7, 2000, Computer Society Press, 2001 (9 pages).. [Abstract and PDF]

Ellison, N., Lampe, C. and Steinfield, C., Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks and Social Capital: The Role of Facebook. in International Communications Association, (Dresden, 2006).

Bruckman, A., Danis, C., Lampe, C., Sternberg, J. and Waldron, C., Managing deviant behavior in online communities. in Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (Montreal, QC, 2006), ACM Press, 21-24. [Abstract]

Ganley, D. and Lampe, C., How Deep Runs the Karma? Structural Holes and Social Capital in an Online Community. in First Midwest United States Association for Information Systems, (Grand Rapids, MI, 2006). [Abstract and PDF version of paper]

Lampe, C., Talking politics on the side: political conversation on Slashdot. in Online Deliberation 2005 / DIAC-2005, (Stanford, CA, 2005). [PDF version of paper]

Professional activities