| Chapter : | Introduction |
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As Wellman and Hampton (1999) put it: “When computer networks connect people and organizations, they are the infrastructure of social networks” (p. 649). The Internet can be understood as a computer-mediated social network, which visualizes the revolutionary shift “from living in ‘little boxes, to living in networked societies” (p. 648). What should be noted here is a shift from closed groups or local social clusters to global networks opened to the world outside, whereby people communicate with one another beyond prior social boundaries (Wellman et al., 1996).
As Granovetter (1973) noted earlier, new ideas and information are often communicated through weak social connections (e.g., mere acquaintances) rather than strong ones: Homophilious or close-knit groups “act as a barrier preventing new ideas from entering the network,” while heterophilious or sparsely networked groups enable “innovations to flow from clique to clique via liaisons and bridges” (Rogers, 1976, p. 299). This theoretical notion clearly epitomizes the impact of the CME. Facilitating communication among strangers may increase dramatically the probability that a piece of information is transferred from one social cluster to another, which remarkably accelerates the speed of information diffusion. By allowing individuals to communicate with multiple others beyond social and physical boundaries, in short, the CME creates a unique environment where the impact of the information disseminated by an individual consumer becomes comparable to that of a large corporation. It is of no doubt that this expansion of the range of consumers’ information transmission may have a direct impact on the performance of products, services, and even companies in this new communication environment. This is why advertising scholars and practitioners should pay close attention to the convergence between interpersonal and mass-mediated communication.