Week Three - Brief analysis of a web forum

Choose a web forum and undertake a brief analysis of its dynamics as a communication form.

A web forum is a discussion site where people can post comments or thoughts about a certain topic. Web forums usually contain completely user generated content and are usually about a particular subject.

I have chosen to look at the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) discussion boards, which can be accessed via this link:
http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000002/threads/?p=2

I noticed that people interact mainly by replying to threads that a user has posted. For example, one person will pose a question then give their thoughts, and then other users, sometimes up to hundreds of people, will answer with their views.

I found that people don’t tend to present themselves to others; there’s no conversation regarding personal lives or identities. They are more inclined to express their opinion on the particular thread they’re commenting on. Users do have profiles, where they have the option to display personal facts such as name, age, location, likes and dislikes. The profiles can be accessed by clicking on usernames which are hyperlinks. Although this information can be retrieved I found it seems to be of low importance.

Due to the clear-cut nature of the forums I don’t feel you really get a sense of what kinds of people the participants are. The only information instantly provided are a username and their comments regarding the movie topic.

The characteristics of the site structure make it easy to view many different discussion topics so users can easily pick a subject of interest. I feel that the type of communication used in this forum is very straight to the point and the fact that there are lists of topics is what influences this. People see a topic, and display their opinion, nothing else needs to be included. The type of topic, which is movies, (including films, actors and actresses, games etc) also has a similar effect on the straight-forward communication. People that visit the forum have an interest in movies and a desire to share their opinions with other film fans.

Another thing I noticed about the communication within the forum is that it is very up to date. On the few different occasions when I accessed the site the latest posts were within the last few minutes or hours. Also, I observed that many of the comments on different threads are from the same user name. This shows that some people are very active users of the forum. I found this quite odd, as there don’t appear to be any ‘relationships’ between users despite the high usage. The IMDb forum appears to be used by genuine film fanatics. I see this in a positive light; there is no issue of identity or ethical issues of withholding information.