Status and participation in on-line tasks group

This chapter presents a dynamic model that explains status hierarchies in online task-oriented groups, whose members may be differentiated by an external status characteristic. The model reveals the participation of actors in online group discussions, how this participation is affected by external status characteristics, and how it leads to the formation of internal status relations. The model relies on and extends the approach by Skvoretz and Fararo known as E-state structuralism (ESS) in the formation of status hierarchies in task-oriented groups. The model is an attempt to modify the ESS model by broadening its interaction range and extending it beyond pairwise interactions. The author implements his micro-founded generative hypotheses as an agent-based model and has then tested the outcome of the model with a case study to empirically validate the simulations. Finally, the chapter evaluates behavior of the model in its parameter space and compares it to the observed outcomes.