The Role of Status Seeking in Online Communities: Giving the Gift of Experience

By Joseph Lampel, Ajay Bhalla. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun., 2007

418 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines online gift giving in the form of opinion, information, and advice that individuals post on websites. Research has highlighted altruism and reciprocity as the key motives behind such gift giving. We argue that informational gift giving is also strongly driven by status and status seeking, and that status sentiments are more likely to sustain virtual communities. Using theories of status seeking and self-presentation, we investigate the ways in which consumers construct status in online consumer communities. The data reveal insights into the strategies behind constructing a digital status and the rise of online systems to promote celebrity status within online communities.

Subfields: Communication, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2b468d0cc4fa81097fcba171f456bf49ff47ce38

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Citations in the corpus

Word of mouth and interpersonal communication: A review and directions for future research (2014, background): “Some suggest that status seeking is the main reason people post online reviews (Lampel & Bhalla, 2007) and people are more likely to talk about products that convey an impression of being “with-it” (Chung & Darke, 2006).1 (2) Identity-signaling Beyond generally looking good, people also share…”
I'm Going to Instagram It! An Analysis of Athlete Self-Presentation on Instagram (2015, background): “In early self-presentation research via computer-mediated forums, scholars explored dating sites (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006; Gibbs et al., 2006; Toma & Hancock, 2010) and online community groups (Lampel & Bhalla, 2007; Schwammelin & Wodzicki, 2012).”
Online Personal Branding: Processes, Challenges, and Implications (2011, background): “Information found online provides a digital footprint that implicitly brands people (Lampel and Bhalla 2007; Madden et al. 2007).”
Extended Self in a Digital World (2013, background): “Various motivations are seen in analyses of digital giftgiving, ranging from reciprocity-seeking, ingratiation, and status-seeking to altruism and love (Coyne 2005; DenegriKnott, et al. 2012; Lampel and Bhalla 2007; Martin 2008).”
Intrinsic vs. Image-Related Utility in Social Media: Why Do People Contribute Content to Twitter? (2013, background): “Other features of Twitter include the ability for a user to “unfollow” another user (i.e., stop following a user that he or she had been following), to “block” another user (i.e., prevent that other user from following him or her), and to make his or her own account “protected.””
Crowdsourcing, attention and productivity (2008, positive): “Similarly, within online communities, status and recognition have been shown to be very important motivators for contributing [9].”