Effects of Individuals' Motivations on Communications in Online Health Forums

Abstract

Our aim was to analyze the effects of individuals' motivations, specifically reciprocity, experience, activity, and emotion, on their communications in an online health forum. We employed an exponential random graph approach to analyze concrete models embedded in online health networks. According to the research that we conducted over a 5-year period on a dataset drawn from a global diabetes forum, reciprocal information diffusion occurred in the forum; a high level of online activity had a positive impact for gratification of the individual user. Both having more experience and expressing polarized emotions played an important role in individuals' post contributions, however these factors had little influence on reply interaction among users. We also modeled post contribution and reply interaction in the same network in respect to the relationship-building processes, which may help in gaining more understanding about the mechanisms underlying communication in online health forums.