Social Network Signatures of Effective Online Communication

Abstract

In this paper, we study effective communication skills by analyzing the structure properties (e.g., degree, hub) of participants’ interactions in an online classroom discussion context. We perform a regularized canonical correlation analysis to explore the social network signatures of effective communication skills (e.g., perspective taking). Experiments on computer-mediated communication among college students have shown that a statistically significant correlation exists between effective communication skills and social network profiles, measured on the same participant, with an effect size of 0.81. We discover that people showing more perspective taking behaviors are more popular and influential than others in their communication network. Such people also tend to reach out to people who behave similarly, which implies a like-attracts-like social phenomenon that complies with the Law of Attraction.