Effective voice: Beyond exit and affect in online communities

Abstract

Online communities provide ample opportunities for user self-expression but generally lack the means for average users to exercise direct control over community policies. This article sets out to identify a set of strategies and techniques through which the voices of participants might be better heard through defined mechanisms for institutional governance. Drawing on Albert O. Hirschman’s distinction between “exit” and “voice” in institutional life, it introduces a further distinction between two kinds of participation: effective voice, as opposed to the far more widespread practices of affective voice. Effective voice is a form of individual or collective speech that brings about a binding effect according to transparent processes. Platform developers and researchers might explore this neglected form of voice by introducing mechanisms for authority and accountability, collective action, and community evolution.

Institutional similarity drives cultural similarity among online communities

“…Although we focus on the online community context, our results, to some extent, can be generalized to realworld communities and provide some implications. The results show stronger institutional effects on culture than the other way round, even in online settings in which individuals have more bargaining power over institutional development 28 . This validates the empirical work in real-world research that supports more direct institutional effects and demonstrates that this effect is robust to changes in individuals' agency.…”

The quality of crowdsourcing virtual community and users’ voice behavior: An analysis of stimulus-organism-response framework among Chinese users

“…Research on users' voice behavior has mainly focused on the antecedents. For example, Frey and Schneider [ 66 ] proposed that a set of strategies and techniques for online communities could enhance participants' effective voices. Empirical evidence by Sun et al [ 36 ] confirms that customers’ intrinsic motivation to voice facilitates their continuous voice intention of the virtual brand community.…”

Decentralizing Platform Power: A Design Space of Multi-Level Governance in Online Social Platforms

“…In the "implicit feudalism" model inherent on many social platforms (Schneider, 2021), a community's founder has absolute autonomy over that community by default and is not directly responsible to users. Often, the only accountability is indirect, through the threat that users will exit for other more accountable or otherwise desirable communities (Frey & Schneider, 2020). The more rare and interesting case is a middle-level formally accountable to those below it.…”

“…Accountability can also come from the levels below. Processes for users to report, elect, or otherwise exert pressure on local administrators would exert higher accountability to lower levels (Frey & Schneider, 2020). A middle level supported from below can work autonomously from the level above and would be obliged to hold greater accountability to the level below for its decisions.…”