Gift-giving as a conceptual framework: framing social behavior in online networks

This paper explores the use of gift-giving as a theoretical and conceptual framework for analyzing social behavior in online networks and communities. Not only has gift-giving the potential to frame and explain much social media behavior, but reversely, and perhaps more importantly, mediated social behavior also has the potential to develop gift-giving theory. Information and communication technologies form joint sociotechnical systems where new practices emerge. The paper focuses on describing the academic background of the gifting framework to help develop a deeper, theory-based, understanding of these sociotechnical phenomena. Three themes are prevalent in the gifting literature: other-orientation, social bonding and generalized reciprocity. The paper gives examples of how these themes are enacted by end-users via the use of information and communication technologies. Finally, sociotechnically embedded economies, called gifting technologies, are identified and discussed.

[1]  Y. Amichai-Hamburger.  The social net : understanding human behavior in cyberspace , 2005 .

[2]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences , 2005 .

[3]  D. Ihde.  Postphenomenology: Essays in the Postmodern Context , 1993 .

[4]  D. Cheal.  ‘Showing Them You Love Them’: Gift Giving and the Dialectic of Intimacy , 1987 .

[5]  D. Cheal.  The Gift Economy , 1988 .

[6]  D. Bell.  Modes of exchange: Gift and commodity , 1991 .

[7]  John P. Meriac,et al.  Expanding the criterion domain? A quantitative review of the OCB literature. , 2007, The Journal of applied psychology.

[8]  Nazareno Andrade,et al.  Gifting technologies: A BitTorrent case study , 2006, First Monday.

[9]  Miranda Mowbray,et al.  Cookies, Gift-Giving, and the Internet , 1999, First Monday.

[10]  Aafke Komter,et al.  Gifts and Social Relations , 2007 .

[11]  Robert D. Putnam,et al.  Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community , 2000, CSCW '00.

[12]  J. Andreoni.  IMPURE ALTRUISM AND DONATIONS TO PUBLIC GOODS: A THEORY OF WARM-GLOW GIVING* , 1990 .

[13]  E. Goffman.  Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order , 1971 .

[14]  B. Wellman,et al.  Different Strokes from Different Folks: Community Ties and Social Support , 1990, American Journal of Sociology.

[15]  Helmuth Berking.  Sociology of giving , 1999 .

[16]  Aafke Komter,et al.  Reciprocity as a Principle of Exclusion: Gift giving in the Netherlands , 1996 .

[17]  Lars Erik Holmquist,et al.  Gifts from friends and strangers: A study of mobile music sharing , 2007, ECSCW.

[18]  Erika Pearson,et al.  Digital gifts: Participation and gift exchange in Livejournal communities , 2007, First Monday.

[19]  R. Putnam.  The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life , 1993 .

[20]  Richard Barbrook,et al.  The Hi-Tech Gift Economy , 1998, First Monday.

[21]  Jörgen Skågeby.  Semi-public end-user content contributions - A case-study of concerns and intentions in online photo-sharing , 2008, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[22]  Serge-Christophe Kolm,et al.  Introduction: The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism , 2000 .

[23]  Steven Durlauf,et al.  Social Capital , 2004 .

[24]  Jörgen Skågeby,et al.  Gifting technologies , 2004, First Monday.

[25]  Harris Wu,et al.  Harvesting social knowledge from folksonomies , 2006, HYPERTEXT '06.

[26]  Jörgen Skågeby,et al.  Exploring Qualitative Sharing Practices of Social Metadata: Expanding the Attention Economy , 2009, Inf. Soc..

[27]  M. Sahlins.  Stone Age Economics , 2020 .

[28]  Colin Camerer.  Gifts as Economic Signals and Social Symbols , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  J. Andreoni.  Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence , 1989, Journal of Political Economy.

[30]  Frederick H. Damon.  The Kula and Generalised Exchange: Considering Some Unconsidered Aspects of the Elementary Structures of Kinship , 1980 .

[31]  Frédéric F. Brunel,et al.  Gift Receipt and the Reformulation of Interpersonal Relationships , 1999 .

[32]  B. Malinowski.  Kula: The Circulating Exchange Of Valuables In The Archipelagoes Of Eastern New Guinea , 1920 .

[33]  Arun Venkataramani,et al.  Do incentives build robustness in bit torrent , 2007 .

[34]  R. Connor,et al.  Invested, extracted and byproduct benefits: A modified scheme for the evolution of cooperation , 2007, Behavioural Processes.

[35]  A. Offer.  Between the gift and the market: the economy of regard , 1997 .

[36]  Lee Sproull,et al.  Prosocial Behavior on the Net , 2011, Daedalus.

[37]  Daniel Pargman,et al.  File-Sharing Relationships — conflicts of interest in online gift-giving , 2005 .

[38]  Jacquest T. Godbout,et al.  The World of the Gift , 1998 .

[39]  D. Cheal,et al.  The Social Dimensions of Gift Behaviour , 1986 .

[40]  Mark Cenite,et al.  More Than Just Free Content , 2009 .

[41]  J. J. F. Sherry.  Gift Giving in Anthropological Perspective , 1983 .

[42]  J. Carrier.  Gifts, commodities, and social relations: A Maussian view of exchange , 1991 .

[43]  M. Giesler.  Consumer Gift Systems , 2006 .

[44]  L. J. Williams,et al.  Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment as Predictors of Organizational Citizenship and In-Role Behaviors , 1991 .

[45]  D. Wegner,et al.  Transactive memory in close relationships. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[46]  P. Bourdieu.  Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste* , 2018, Food and Culture.