Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

On The Role Of Social Identity And Cohesion In Characterizing Online Social Communities, Hemant Purohit, Yiye Ruan, David Fuhry, Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

Two prevailing theories for explaining social group or community structure are cohesion and identity. The social cohesion approach posits that social groups arise out of an aggregation of individuals that have mutual interpersonal attraction as they share common characteristics. These characteristics can range from common interests to kinship ties and from social values to ethnic backgrounds. In contrast, the social identity approach posits that an individual is likely to join a group based on an intrinsic self-evaluation at a cognitive or perceptual level. In other words group members typically share an awareness of a common category membership. In this work …