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TRANSFORMING LURKERS INTO POSTERS: THE

ROLE OF THE PARTICIPATION CONTINUUM

Jonathan Bishop

Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems

Swansea University, Swansea, UK jonathan@jonathanbishop.com

ABSTRACT

Encouraging participation has long been seen as a way additional to new technology of helping online

communities to grow. Online community sysops may well advertise their website on other service

platforms, but with up to 90% of the visitors to their site being non-participants, referred to as lurkers,

they could do no better than improving their website to tackle lurker fears. This paper presents the

‗participation continuum‘ for understanding why some users are posters, and do participate, and why

others are lurkers, and do not contribute. The paper considers the fears of reluctant lurkers to

participation and shows how as a result of trying to resolve the incongruence between wanting to post but

fearing the consequences they will often be stagnant in a state of rationalization, giving excuses for non-

participation. Through intellectualizing after being provided with new evidence from sysops, they begin

to mediate towards enhancement where their participation will increase. The determined lurkers are

quite happy lurking, and preserving non participation, and therefore need more help to bridge the

‗Preece Gap‘ between where they are currently participating and where they could be with more help.

KEYWORDS

Online communities, lurkers, peripheral participation, ecological cognition, participation continuum,

seductive hypermedia

1. INTRODUCTION

Finding new ways to makes ones‘ website grow is a challenge for any online community owner.

Often this is looked on in a technical way, where such platforms are encouraged to move from

simple resource archives toward adding new ways of communicating and functioning [1]. It is

known that if an online community has the right technology, the right policies, the right content,

pays attention to the strata it seeks to attract, and knows its purpose and values then it can grow

almost organically [2]. A potential problem stalling the growth of an online community is lack

of participation of members in posting content, as even with the right technology there is often

still a large number of ‗lurkers‘ who are not participating [3]. Lurkers are defined as online

community members who visit and use an online community but who do not post messages,

who unlike posters, are not enhancing the community in any way in a give and take relationship

and do not have any direct social interaction with the community [4]. Lurking is the normal

behaviour of the most online community members and reflects the level of participation, either

as no posting at all or as some minimal level of posting [5]. Lurkers may have once posted, but

remain on the periphery due to a negative experience. The idea of lurkers being peripheral to the

community has been established [6], with them also being referred to as ‗visitors‘ because they

have no persistent identity in the community.

1.1. The Lurker Profile

Lurkers often do not initially post to an online community for a variety of reasons, but it is clear

that whatever the specifics of why a lurker is not participating the overall reason is because of

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the dissonance of their cognitions that they have experienced when presented with a hook into a

conversation. Cognitions include goals, plans, values, beliefs and interests [3], and may also

include ‗detachments'. These may include that they think they don‘t need or shouldn‘t post or

don‘t like the group dynamics [7]. In addition some of the plans of lurkers causing dissonance

has been identified [7], including needing to find out more about the group before participating

and usability difficulties. The cognitions of ‗goals‘ and ‗plans‘ could be considered to be stored

in ‗procedural memory, and the ‗values‘ and beliefs could be considered to be stored in

‗declarative memory‘. The remaining cognitions, ‗interest‘ and ‗detachment‘ may exist in

something which the author calls, ‗dunbar memory‘, after Robin Dunbar, who hypothesised that

people are only able to hold in memory 150 people at a time. It may be that lurkers don‘t

construct other members as individuals, and don‘t therefore create an ‗interest‘ causing their

detachment cognitions to be dominant. The profile of a reluctant lurker therefore is that of a

socially detached actor, fearing consequences of their actions, feeling socially isolated or

excluded, trapped in a state of low flow but high involvement. Lurkers, it has been argued are

no more "tied" to an online community than viewers of broadcast television are "tied" to the

stations they view [8]. However, it can be seen that some more determined lurkers are engaged

in a state of flow with low involvement in doubting non-participation. Some have suggested

lurkers lack commitment [9], but they are almost twice as likely to return to the site after an

alert [10]. Indeed, lurkers belong to the community, and while they decide not to post in it, they

are attracted to it for reasons similar to others [11]. It has been argued that most lurkers are

either shy, feel inadequate regarding a given topic, or are uncomfortable expressing their

thoughts in written form [12], but others suggest lurking is not always an ability issue [13].

2. INCLUDING LURKERS IN AN ONLINE COMMUNITY

By definition an online community is a website where its users have the opportunity to post or

edit content [14], and those users have to break through a barrier from lurking to posting [6, 15].

As community development becomes an important component of commerce on the Internet,

understanding lurkers will become an essential part of doing business [5]. Benefits to lurkers

should not be ignored even if such lurkers are invisible to the community [16]. Even though

being a lurker can seem negative, it should not be considered bad to be a lurker as often they are

simply interested in the topic of conversation, and are just trying to learn from others [17].

Indeed, lurkers are legitimate as visitors to web sites, subscribers to listservs, recipients of e-

mail and users of an organization's intranet [18]. Therefore under the principle of net neutrality,

a lurker should be treated the same as a poster as they serve to encourage others to make public

contributions [19]. Indeed, lurkers, while not posters, contribute to an online community‘s usage

statistics through increasing the number of ‗hits‘ and advertising revenue. Although there is a

role for lurkers in this capacity, a website of only lurkers will rapidly lose its attractiveness [20].

2.1. Towards a Participation Continuum

Crucial to understanding how to help online communities grow by including more lurkers is

understanding the concept of flow, or ‗low involvement‘. When an actor is engaged in a state of

flow their concentration is so intense that they forget about their fears and become fully

immersed and completely involved in what they are doing [21]. Decision-making in such a state

becomes more fluid and actors respond almost without thought for the consequences of their

actions. In a high state of flow, those users who have an anti-social disposition, known as Snerts

[22], will have low involvement cognitively and post flames with little restraint, deterring

lurkers from becoming posters. A structure based on the ecological cognition framework for

decision making in human-centred computer systems has been proposed [23], which introduced

the concepts of deference, intemperance, reticence, temperance and ignorance. There is a

potential further decision overlooked in that original model, which based on the fact that actors

do not always make a decision immediately, but may procrastinate or go into a dilemma cycle,

which are a binary decision deferring process based on congruence and incongruence. It is now

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believed that the outcome of these cognitive states is related to the pressure of the synergy of

nerve conductions. The cognitive states will lead to empression, regidepression, depression,

suppression and repression respectively in the case of the original five judgements. The six

cognitive state reflects the dilemma that lurkers go through, which are compression when they

experience incongruence due to congruence when trying to avoid cognitions which are not

compatible with their ideal self. Decompression on the other hand is when they start to break

this down. An amalgamation of these with the participation continuum is presented in Figure 1,

referred to as the ‗participation continuum‘.

Figure 1 The Participation Continuum

There appears to be a ‗zone of participation dissonance‘, between the level at which an actor is

currently participating and what they could achieve if there was greater support for usability and

sociability. This distance between fully ‗mediating‘ their transfer to enhancement of

participation could be called the ‗Preece Gap‘, after Jenny Preece, who set out how to design for

usability and support sociability [24]. As can be seen from the participation continuum in Figure

1, the higher the state of flow for a lurker, the more likely they are to be ‗dismediating‘ from

enhancement by not to posting due to low involvement and the higher the state of flow for a

poster the more likely they are to keep mediating towards ‗enhancement‘ with the community

with little effort (i.e. involvement). The process in in the middle resembles the visitor-novice

barrier in the membership lifecycle [6]. A lurker who has had bad experiences may be sucked

into stagnation through rationalisation of non-participation, going from minimal posting [5] to

lurking (i.e. where they give up posting) and back out again after the intellectualisation process.

This resembles a ‗battering‘ cycle [25], where the actor will be under a barrage of flaming

abuse, then be told all is forgiven and they can come back as in [22].

3. OVERCOMING LURKER FEARS

It has been shown that lurkers are often less enthusiastic about the benefits of community

membership [26]. Lurkers may become socially isolated, where they isolate themselves from

the peer group (i.e. social withdrawal), or are isolated by the peer group (i.e. social rejection)

[27]. This suggests in line with some research [3], that the leaders are not doing enough to

increase participation through failing to challenge members‘ unconstructive behaviour. Lurkers

are far from deviant individuals [28], but suggesting they should not be converted into posters is

accepting the leaders‘ failure to the lurker by not making conditions less threatening. Lurkers

actually have a number of fears of participating in communities, and may if given the chance

make a worthwhile contribution to the site [3]. For lurkers to be converted into posters and in

order for their untapped contributions to be allowed to be expressed then online community

managers need to overcome the lurkers‘ fears that are preventing them from participating.

Some researchers characterised lurkers as against hasty conversation rather than a problem for

the community [29]. Often lurkers are afraid of flame wars and potential scrutinising of their

comments [30]. Marked and excessive fear of social interactions or performance in which the

person is exposed to potential scrutiny is a core feature of social phobia [31], which has similar

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facets to lurking [32]. Perhaps one of the most effective means to change the beliefs of lurkers

so that they become novices is for regulars, leaders and elders to nurture novices in the

community [3]. It is known that therapist intervention can help overcome social phobia [33]. It

could be that through ‗private messaging‘ features that a leader could speak to a registered

member who is yet to post. After all, a community is a network of actors where their

commonality is their dependence on one another, so feeling a need to be present is essential.

It is known that lurkers view persistent conversation as a loss of security and privacy [34].

Using pseudonyms can overcome this, but only creates further fears of uncertainty over others.

Fear of reprisals, such as with an employer or acquaintance, through making comments in an

online community, particularly if they are of a ‗whistle-blowing‘ nature also cause significant

dissonance for lurker when they are considering posting. While sites like Wikipedia justify

using pseudonyms, the continued practice of allowing people to mask their true identities only

mean their vested interests go unnoticed and they feel more able to act in an unconstructive

manner. Unmasking posters may turn them into lurkers because they will fear reprisals, but

some professional networks see this congesting of a site with ill-informed contributions

damaging to their credibility [35]. The solution to help lurkers is to remove the discussion pages

from search engine indexes. This may not be appropriate on some technical online communities,

which have the purpose to help people overcome a problem they are experiencing, but may be

appropriate in geographically orientated communities. Communities such as Wikipedia, may

benefit from not indexing ‗talk pages‘ to better protect people who are outted.

Feelings of uncertainty over the use of posted messages is common to lurkers All social

situations carry some uncertainty, which people with social phobia find challenging [36].

Lurking can potentially lead to social isolation, such as not naming anyone outside of their

home as a discussion partner [37]. Lurkers are less likely to report receiving social support and

useful information and have lower in satisfaction with group participation [38]. Leaders can

post more messages to encourage all members to post messages [39]. Uncertainty caused by

poor usability leads to non-participation by lurkers [7], and this can be tackled by having the

right technology and policies [2]. Developing trust involves overcoming, particularly in trading

communities [40]. Such trust was evident in The WELL (Whole Earth ‗Lectronic Link), where

members use their real names rather than pseudonyms [41]. Requiring actors to use their real

names could help a lurker overcome their uncertainties about others‘ true intentions.

Some online communities see lurkers as untrustworthy and ill-intentioned [42]. This may make

them feel unwanted and unwelcome [7]. Social isolation is either voluntary or involuntary [43].

As can be seen from Figure 1, there is a gap between when an actor is stagnating over

participation to when they have reached the path of lurking. Converting stagnating actors into

posters can include introducing a ‗don‘t bite the newbies‘ policy. Controversial actors stand the

risk of becoming Big Men [22]. They may get into any number of flame-wars because of their

opinions and personality, which could lead to sysops forcing them to become lurkers.

4. AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

A study was designed to compare those who take part in online communities with those that

take part in real-world communities. A questionnaire was developed based on the Social

Thoughts and Beliefs Scale [44], based on the hypothesis that lurkers, or Preservers, have

similar characteristics to those with social phobia. The questionnaire was administered to

support the principle of ecological validity through the questions being asked through a website

to the respondents in the online communities investigated. Participants self-defined themselves

according to whether they were lurkers or posters and in all cases their degree of participation

(i.e. preserving to enhancing) measured on a scale of 1 to 10 reflected their self-definition.

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4.1. Results

A total of 15 participants were

Preservers and 12 and Enhancers.

While the sample size was small as

would be expected in a study of

lurkers, the differences found between

the groups were significant. Analysing

the results, summarised in Table 1,

revealed that Preservers in online

communities had a Mean score of

27.00 (SD=14.39) on the Social

Thoughts and Beliefs Scale, whereas

the Enhancers had a Mean score of

23.17 (SD=9.19). In a study of the

scale those with social phobia scored a

Mean of 52.4 (SD=11.7) and the

control group scored a Mean of 22.3

(SD=11.3). Whilst the Preservers had

higher scores than the Enhancers, their

scores were like those without social

phobia than those with it. An

independent samples test was carried

out using the Mann-Whitney, as

presented in Table 2. There was a

significant difference between

Preservers and Enhancers and the

stabs1 belief about clumsiness (Z=-3.828, p=<0.001). The stabs14 belief, about fear of looking

stupid was predictive of lurking in online communities (Z=-3.534, p=<0.001). Significant

differences between Preservers and Enhancers about the stabs18 belief of not looking smart

exist, not favouring the Ps (Z=-4.294, p<0.001). The stabs10 belief about not being comfortable

in social situations was predictive of Preservers (Z=-2.620, p=<0.010). The inability to smooth

over a situation (stabs17) was more characteristic of Preservers than Enhancers (Z=-3.134,

p=<0.003). Lack of willingness to say what they think (stabs2) was true more of Preservers (Z=-

2.987, p=<0.004). There was a stronger feeling of being uncomfortable in social situations by

Preservers than Enhancers.

5. DISCUSSION

It is a goal of most providers of online communities to make their community grow. While

some may make efforts to advertise their website or improve its search engine rankings or even

add new features to get new users, there is the possibility that there is already a large base of

users who access the site but do not post. Referred to as lurkers, these users often hold

legitimate fears about posting, often because of a negative experience in the past with an online

community, sometimes even the one they are lurking on. Lurker fears include concerns that they

may be abused or face undue scrutiny, fear of loss of privacy or reprisals, fear of uncertainty

and lack of reciprocity, and fear of being driven out. This suggests that the profile of a lurker is

that of some preserving their fragile sense of self-respect and integrity, fearing consequences of

their actions, and feeling socially isolated or excluded from the target community. If online

community systems operators want to grow their communities then they need to take steps to

encourage lurkers to become posters by overcoming their fears as they already have an interest

in the community and may not need substantial persuasion to participation. This paper has

presented the ‗participation continuum‘ to explain the psychological stages between lurking and

Table 1 Means and z-scores for Preservers and Enhancers

Preservers Enhancers Z

stabs1 -4.00 -16.00 -3.828

stabs2 -5.20 -16.67 -2.987

stabs4 -5.87 -13.33 -1.669

stabs5 -2.80 -15.17 -2.890

stabs6 -4.40 -10.67 -2.064

stabs7 -6.07 -16.67 -2.528

stabs8 -.93 -3.67 -0.788

stabs9 -1.40 -1.50 -0.441

stabs10 -3.67 -15.17 -2.620

stabs11 -3.80 -9.67 -1.859

stabs12 -.93 2.17 -0.612

stabs13 -3.87 -8.50 -0.965

stabs14 -6.40 -18.00 -3.534

stabs15 -5.00 -9.17 -0.809

stabs16 -6.13 -17.00 -3.107

stabs17 -6.20 -15.50 -3.134

stabs18 -7.07 -19.83 -4.294

stabs19 -7.73 -14.33 -1.911

stabs20 -1.60 -13.83 -3.292

stabs21 -5.80 -18.33 -3.428

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posting. Sysops need to help lurkers cross the ‗stagnation‘ barrier, which is the dividing line

where whether or not the users posts or lurks they feel regret. It is at the opportune moment

when the user is at this point that a community leader can convince the lurker to overcome their

dissonance and experience ‗intemperance‘ where they resolve to post even after having regrets.

This paper has discussed several ways this can be done. These include avoiding the use of

pseudonyms, avoiding allowing search engines to index discussions, and discouraging the

posting of abusive content.

5.1. Limitations and directions for future research

This paper has presented a continuum for understanding lurkers and others participation and a

series of recommendations for online community managers to use to move their users from the

lurking side of the continuum to the posting side. While the model and recommendations are

based on established research, more empirical research needs to be done to establish whether the

recommendations have the suggested benefit of encouraging lurkers to become posters. The

paper has provided a list of some of the fears that lurkers experience. This list may not be

complete, so further research could identify further fears and the ways they can be overcome.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank all the reviewers who provided comments and feedback on

earlier versions of this paper. Thanks are due to Professor Andrew Blyth of the University of

Glamorgan, without whom the author would never have made the link between non-

participation and social exclusion.

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