Receiver cost

Receiver Costs in social media is a term used by Judith Donath in her artical ''Signals in social Supernets. ''She uses the term to describe to cost/benefit relationship in social media, mainly SNS's.

Receiver costs point to what is at stake in the usage of SNS's. Weighting first whether or not to confirm the person as your friend, then examining their profile while considering them is a type of receiver cost. It is the time and energy devoted to maintain the online relationship, which is referred to as social grooming. Being able to have access to friends who one might value, for example, is an asset with the only cost being the time and energy of using the SNS (and sifting through ads in some situations.) Donath articualted Burt and Paine's ideas in her article saying, "Making the reliable cues more accessible would improve the receiver's assessing ability, while reducing information strategically." Site design seems to be at the pinacle of reducing receiver costs, and by doing this Donath would argue SNS's become more productive.

Here are a few contemporary examples that were discussed in class

Example 1: A diner is hiring a new waitress. The diner recieves over a thousand applications for the job opening. It would not be worth the time and effort to go through every one of those applications in order to hire a waitress.

Example 2: CUA is currently searching for a new President. It is most certainly worth the time and effort put in (a wide ranging search that will take several months) to find the right person for the job.

&lt;Burt, R. S. (1997). The contingent value of social capital. (2), 339-365.&gt;

&lt;Paine, R. (1967). What is gossip about? An alternative hypothesis. (2), 278-285.&gt;

&lt;http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/donath.html&gt;


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