Mitigating Barriers to Public Social Interaction with Meronymous Communication (2402.17847v1)

Abstract: In communities with social hierarchies, fear of judgment can discourage communication. While anonymity may alleviate some social pressure, fully anonymous spaces enable toxic behavior and hide the social context that motivates people to participate and helps them tailor their communication. We explore a design space of meronymous communication, where people can reveal carefully chosen aspects of their identity and also leverage trusted endorsers to gain credibility. We implemented these ideas in a system for scholars to meronymously seek and receive paper recommendations on Twitter and Mastodon. A formative study with 20 scholars confirmed that scholars see benefits to participating but are deterred due to social anxiety. From a month-long public deployment, we found that with meronymity, junior scholars could comfortably ask ``newbie'' questions and get responses from senior scholars who they normally found intimidating. Responses were also tailored to the aspects about themselves that junior scholars chose to reveal.

• The paper introduces a meronymity model that enables selective identity disclosure, thereby mitigating social anxiety and enhancing public scholarly interaction.
• It details the design and deployment of the LITWEETURE system, validated through interviews and a month-long study involving 20 scholars.
• The study finds that partial identity cues improve tailored responses and credibility while addressing challenges like potential de-anonymization.

Analyzing Meronymous Communication for Enhancing Public Social Interaction in Academia

This paper presents a novel approach to addressing the limitations of anonymity in academic and scholarly online engagement through a concept termed "meronymity." Meronymity is positioned between anonymity and full identity disclosure, allowing individuals to selectively reveal facets of their identity. The paper argues that this balanced approach mitigates social anxieties associated with public interaction while maintaining credibility and trust within hierarchical communities like academia.

Core Contributions

The central contribution of this work is the design and empirical validation of a meronymity model within an academic context. The researchers implemented a system, LITWEETURE, designed to assist scholars in obtaining literature recommendations on platforms such as Twitter and Mastodon. By enabling users to share selective identity cues, LITWEETURE aims to alleviate the social pressure junior academics face when interacting with senior peers. The paper's key results demonstrate that partial identity disclosure can boost engagement, encourage tailored responses, and enhance the perceived credibility of posts.

Methodology and Key Findings

The authors conducted a formative paper followed by a month-long field deployment of LITWEETURE. The formative paper involved interviews with 20 scholars, highlighting the reluctance of junior academics to participate in public discourse due to fears of judgment by more senior members. The implementation of LITWEETURE incorporated identity signals that are verified and relevant to academic self-presentation, leveraging partial anonymity to foster a more inclusive interaction environment.

The primary findings from deploying LITWEETURE indicate that participants felt more confident asking questions publicly and valued the social validation received through interactions on Twitter. Additionally, meronymous identity presentation enabled better contextualization and specificity, fostering more relevant and credible responses from peers and experts. The capability to balance anonymity with relevant identity disclosures was met with positive feedback, encouraging broader participation without compromising privacy.

Implications and Challenges

The paper illuminates the potential of meronymous communication in reducing the barriers to participation in hierarchical communities. For academia, this could democratize access to expertise, bridging gaps between junior and senior members of the scholarly ecosystem. However, challenges persist concerning the risks of de-anonymization, especially when posting within smaller or tightly-knit academic circles.

The effectiveness of meronymity hinges on robust identity verification and peer endorsement mechanisms, seamlessly incorporating them into existing social media platforms. Addressing concerns of oversharing and ensuring a balance between on-the-ground visibility and identity protection remain crucial design challenges. Additionally, while partial anonymity improves inclusivity, there’s a risk of perpetuating a "rich-get-richer" dynamic, where users with prestigious affiliations may benefit disproportionately from increased support from the academic community.

Future Directions

The research posits meronymity as a versatile design approach with applications beyond the academic sphere, extending to broader social platforms. Future implementations could explore free-form self-descriptions, employing community-driven identity verification to foster trust and accountability. Further, by facilitating context-aware interactions, such systems can recalibrate the balance of anonymity, enhancing the quality of public and semi-public discourse.

Overall, this paper provides a well-grounded exploration into a middle ground of identity representation, meronymity, showing promise in mitigating barriers to public academic engagement. This paradigm has immediate relevance for online academic communities, with potential spillovers into other domains that experience similar hierarchical dynamics.