Cuihua Shen
www.shencuihua.com
I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, University of California, Davis. My research and teaching interests revolve around the social and psychological impacts of various social media and virtual worlds. These sites include social networking websites (such as Facebook), Massively Multiplayer Online Games (such as EverQuest II and EVE Online), and other online communities designed for collaborative peer production, social support and entertainment.
I have published my work in journals such as Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, and Management Communication Quarterly.
My recent research on massively multiplayer online game has been featured in major media outlets, including US News and World Report (link to news article).
I have won several Top Paper awards from the International Communication Association. My dissertation, "The Patterns, Effects and Evolution of Player Networks in Online Gaming Communities" was a finalist of Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award from ICA.
I received my Ph.D. in 2010 from the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California. Before coming to Annenberg, I earned my BA in English at Zhejiang University and my MA in Communication and New Media at National University of Singapore. Originally I come from Suzhou, a beautiful city in southeast China.
Address: One Shields Drive, Davis, CA, 95616
I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, University of California, Davis. My research and teaching interests revolve around the social and psychological impacts of various social media and virtual worlds. These sites include social networking websites (such as Facebook), Massively Multiplayer Online Games (such as EverQuest II and EVE Online), and other online communities designed for collaborative peer production, social support and entertainment.
I have published my work in journals such as Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, and Management Communication Quarterly.
My recent research on massively multiplayer online game has been featured in major media outlets, including US News and World Report (link to news article).
I have won several Top Paper awards from the International Communication Association. My dissertation, "The Patterns, Effects and Evolution of Player Networks in Online Gaming Communities" was a finalist of Herbert S. Dordick Dissertation Award from ICA.
I received my Ph.D. in 2010 from the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, University of Southern California. Before coming to Annenberg, I earned my BA in English at Zhejiang University and my MA in Communication and New Media at National University of Singapore. Originally I come from Suzhou, a beautiful city in southeast China.
Address: One Shields Drive, Davis, CA, 95616
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and support provision in a depression forum. We constructed a depression forum network by mapping out all of the users and the reply ties among them. The findings showed a consistently reciprocal pattern between users’ replies sent to others and replies received from others.
Forum users’ bridging social capital was positively associated with the source diversity of their received replies and negatively associated
with the average length of their received replies. Furthermore, forum users’ bonding social capital was positively associated with the
average length of their received replies and negatively associated with the source diversity of their received replies.
offline world? What can we learn from players’ experience in Massively Multiplayer Online games
(MMOGs) to advance our understanding of leadership, especially leadership in online settings (E-leadership)?
As part of a larger agenda in the emerging field of empirically testing the ‘‘mapping’’ between the
online and offline worlds, this study aims to tackle a central issue in the E-leadership literature: how have
technology and technology mediated communications transformed leadership-diagnostic traits and
behaviors? To answer this question, we surveyed over 18,000 players of a popular MMOG and also collected
behavioral data of a subset of survey respondents over a four-month period. Motivated by leadership
theories, we examined the connection between respondents’ offline leadership status and their
in-game relationship-oriented and task-related-behaviors. Our results indicate that individuals’ relationship-
oriented behaviors in the virtual world are particularly relevant to players’ leadership status in
voluntary organizations, while their task-oriented behaviors are marginally linked to offline leadership
status in voluntary organizations, but not in companies.
types of co-player networks in online gamers’ social capital acquisition. Over 17,000 players of the popular
game League of Legends were surveyed on their playing partners, the media channels used, and social
capital. Combined with behavioral data from server logs, the results showed that multimodal connectedness
(i.e., the number of communication channels used for social interaction among players) was positively
associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital. The frequency of playing with an
existing offline friend was positively associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital; the frequency
of playing with an online friend first met in the game was positively associated with one’s bridging
social capital; the frequency of playing with a family member was not a significant predictor of one’s
social capital outcomes. Moreover, multimodal connectedness magnified the positive relationships found
between social capital outcomes and playing with online and offline friends.
This research examined the dynamic processes of
relationship formation, maintenance, and demise in a
massively multiplayer online game. Drawing from evolutionary
and ecological theories of social networks, this
study focuses on the impact of three sets of evolutionary
factors in the context of social relationships in the
online game EverQuest II (EQII): the aging and maturation
processes, social architecture of the game, and
homophily and proximity. A longitudinal analysis of tie
persistence and decay demonstrated the transient
nature of social relationships in EQII, but ties became
considerably more durable over time. Also, character
level similarity, shared guild membership, and geographic
proximity were powerful mechanisms in preserving
social relationships.
and support provision in a depression forum. We constructed a depression forum network by mapping out all of the users and the reply ties among them. The findings showed a consistently reciprocal pattern between users’ replies sent to others and replies received from others.
Forum users’ bridging social capital was positively associated with the source diversity of their received replies and negatively associated
with the average length of their received replies. Furthermore, forum users’ bonding social capital was positively associated with the
average length of their received replies and negatively associated with the source diversity of their received replies.
offline world? What can we learn from players’ experience in Massively Multiplayer Online games
(MMOGs) to advance our understanding of leadership, especially leadership in online settings (E-leadership)?
As part of a larger agenda in the emerging field of empirically testing the ‘‘mapping’’ between the
online and offline worlds, this study aims to tackle a central issue in the E-leadership literature: how have
technology and technology mediated communications transformed leadership-diagnostic traits and
behaviors? To answer this question, we surveyed over 18,000 players of a popular MMOG and also collected
behavioral data of a subset of survey respondents over a four-month period. Motivated by leadership
theories, we examined the connection between respondents’ offline leadership status and their
in-game relationship-oriented and task-related-behaviors. Our results indicate that individuals’ relationship-
oriented behaviors in the virtual world are particularly relevant to players’ leadership status in
voluntary organizations, while their task-oriented behaviors are marginally linked to offline leadership
status in voluntary organizations, but not in companies.
types of co-player networks in online gamers’ social capital acquisition. Over 17,000 players of the popular
game League of Legends were surveyed on their playing partners, the media channels used, and social
capital. Combined with behavioral data from server logs, the results showed that multimodal connectedness
(i.e., the number of communication channels used for social interaction among players) was positively
associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital. The frequency of playing with an
existing offline friend was positively associated with one’s bridging and bonding social capital; the frequency
of playing with an online friend first met in the game was positively associated with one’s bridging
social capital; the frequency of playing with a family member was not a significant predictor of one’s
social capital outcomes. Moreover, multimodal connectedness magnified the positive relationships found
between social capital outcomes and playing with online and offline friends.
This research examined the dynamic processes of
relationship formation, maintenance, and demise in a
massively multiplayer online game. Drawing from evolutionary
and ecological theories of social networks, this
study focuses on the impact of three sets of evolutionary
factors in the context of social relationships in the
online game EverQuest II (EQII): the aging and maturation
processes, social architecture of the game, and
homophily and proximity. A longitudinal analysis of tie
persistence and decay demonstrated the transient
nature of social relationships in EQII, but ties became
considerably more durable over time. Also, character
level similarity, shared guild membership, and geographic
proximity were powerful mechanisms in preserving
social relationships.