Cyber-deviance and social capital in virtual community

Abstract

Individuals are increasingly subjected to flaming or negative behaviors as society becomes digitally adept. Abusive language, rude comments, and slander are increasingly prevalent online and are pervasive in many virtual communities. Negative behaviors are escalating online both in quantity and in the degree of offense. Negative online behavior is not limited to a specific website or country, and virtual communities in which members’ exhibit negative behavior have become bigger and more popular than ever. The deviant behavior of a specific community should not be ignored as the weird behavior of some groups. It is because they are large-scale communities that the repetitive behavior in the communities becomes a cultural factor of social behavior that is transferred to the next generation by imitation that can spread to the whole of the Internet. Because of the social influence of these communities, the generalization of their deviant behavior can be connected to their users’ fixation on an inappropriate Internet culture. Therefore, research on the causes of the deviant behavior found in virtual communities and the social effects of the deviant behavior is required. Two research questions were motivated by this interest in deviant behavior. First, what factors make individuals practice deviant behavior? Second, what influences do the characteristics of virtual communities in which deviant behavior is prevalent have on the social capital and subjective well-being of members? The first essay verified the factors that cause the flaming behaviors of virtual communities through the theoretical model developed by integrating criminological theory and social psychological theory. Existing research on flaming is largely fragmented and insufficient for understanding what induces individuals to engage in flaming actions online. Neutralization theory, the theory of planned behavior, and motivational theory are integrated to develop a theoretical model that explains flaming in virtual communities. A large-scale online questionnaire targeting individuals who had experience with flaming in a virtual community was employed to analyze the research model. The results indicated that neutralization, enjoyment, subjective norms, and low self-control significantly influence flaming. Enjoyment, moral beliefs, subjective norms, and self-control influence neutralization, or efforts made by individuals to rationalize their deviant behavior. Neutralization is a major predictor of flaming in virtual communities, which has not previously been examined. Intrinsic motivation or enjoyment influences flaming, which is important because neutralization theory and the theory of planned behavior do not account for motivation. Virtual communities have a tremendous amount of influence on an individual’s rationalization of, and repeated engagement in flaming. The government, Internet service providers, the media, virtual communities, and Internet activists have an opportunity to define appropriate online behavioral standards that diminish the prevalence of flaming. The second essay verified the effects of the characteristics of virtual communities in which deviant behavior is found on social capital and well-being. These characteristics were classified by the exposure levels of antisocial contents in conversation quality and virtual communities recognized by users. Virtual community activities improve interactions among actors and create new relationships. Moreover, virtual community features may have positive effects on social capital and subjective well-being. Do all virtual communities, however, positively influence the social capital and subjective well-being of their participants? Among the features of a virtual community, poor conversation quality and antisocial content might engender a negative effect. It is expected that a virtual community filled with swearing, slander, and violent postings would not increase social capital and subjective well-being. This study explores how that conversational quality and exposure to antisocial content influences social capital and the subjective well-being of virtual community participants. Conversation quality induces individuals to build social capital, and antisocial contents attract the participation of individuals but obstruct their creation of social capital. The quality of conversation and content do not influence subjective well-being directly, as the association between them and subjective well-being is mediated by social capital. Through the findings of two studies, it was confirmed that due to virtual community norms that accept cyber deviance, justification of deviant behavior is made and the virtual community norms are the most important factor to improve the Internet culture. Besides, it was verified that deviant communities have limitations to give positive effects to the formation of social capital and improvement of subjective well-being. If the deviant cyber behavior is overlooked continually for a long time of period, the whole Internet culture can become contaminated. Based on the findings, this study recalls that that cyber deviance may give negative effects to our life and society and suggests social agreement and public opinion on the necessity of a minimum demand for internal regulations on virtual communities.