The Social Lives of Networked Students: Mediated Connections

211 Pages·2019·3.39 MB·English

by  Rajee Kanagavel

Rajee Kanagavel
THE SOCIAL LIVES OF
NETWORKED STUDENTS
MEDIATED CONNECTIONS
The Social Lives of Networked Students
Rajee Kanagavel
The Social Lives of
Networked Students
Mediated Connections
Rajee Kanagavel
School of Social Sciences
Singapore Management University
Singapore, Singapore
ISBN 978-3-319-96198-9 ISBN 978-3-319-96199-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96199-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956301
© Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2019
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Acknowledgements
My experience living in various parts of the world and maintaining trans-
national relationships (mostly through digital means) is perhaps no sur-
prise given the topic of this book. It has been a great journey, not just
working on something I am passionate about, but also sharing the jour-
ney with awesome people.
Firstly, I would like to thank my colleague and friend, Andreas Herz.
Tere are some people who instantly and spontaneously extend support
and motivate others. He is one of them. It defnitely was a great privilege
for me to work together with him over the years.
I am not sure whether this book would have been possible without
Miranda Lubbers. I will always be grateful for her motivation and enthu-
siasm, and for sharing her immense knowledge. Her constructive and
meticulous feedback was more than just encouragement, which made me
work on my PhD with more spirit.
I owe a big thank you to Leonie Dhiman, Hanna Rettig, Elke
Kaufmann, Carolin Oppermann, and Gavaza Maluleke, for their guid-
ance, cheerful encouragement, inspiration, deep insights, and fun times
during the course of this research project. I will forever remember and
cherish the many moments I’ve spent with each of them, learning from
them and pursuing our research together. Tank you for being such a
positive infuence in my life.
v
vi Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Tabea Noack for being endlessly and characteristically
supportive during my time at the University of Hildesheim in Germany.
I would also like to extend my gratitude towards the network researchers
of Research Network—Network Research (R-N-N-R) for the thought-
provoking and enjoyable discussions. I would like to convey my sincere
thanks to my web survey developer, Michael Kronenwett, for the survey
implementation, and for not losing his patience with the numerous
changes I made him go through to achieve the fnal version of the
IntStudLink survey.
A special thanks to my friend Yashvanth Chandrasekaran for helping
me with the graphics and design. I also really appreciate all of the 287
respondents around the world who took their time to fll in the survey,
including their thoughtful comments at the very end.
I dedicate this book to my parents, Maheswari Kanagavel and Kanagavel
Natarajan. If it was not for their conviction and faith in my work, I wouldn’t
have travelled afar on this difcult journey. I take this opportunity to thank
my sister Hema Kanagavel who has been nothing but tremendously sup-
portive during diferent phases of my life. I thank my cousins Shyamala
Athiban, Kamal Raj and Adhithya Ganesh for their friendship over the
years. I feel incredibly grateful to have such a loving family by my side.
I thank my darling friends: Anna Rahe, Pradeep Kannan, Renu
Ramesh, Preethi Prabhakaran, Indhuja Radhakrishnan, Anika Herrmann,
Sarina Schade, and Jennifer Bennor. Te path was more fun and easy to
walk along with you all. I’d like to ofer my thanks to my friends Cora
Kolossa, Mawusi Beluwada, and Nicola Chasseaud for their most valu-
able input and feedback during the manuscript preparation phase.
My acknowledgements would be incomplete without my best bud-
dies, Divya Prabha, Shruthi Ingarsal, and Sindhu Sugumar, who put up
with me for more than a decade, at the same time helping me through
this research. Tey have been part of my dream from day one and it was
they who gave me all of my confdence with the faith that they had in me.
Last but defnitely not least, I thank Wolfgang Schröer for supervising
my PhD research project which is the foundation of this book. Prof
Schröer infuentially expressed an adventurous attitude in regard to
research. His wit and humility have been an inspiration and always will
be. I enjoy working with him and owe him many thanks for everything
that he has instilled in me and for all his guidance.
Contents
1 I ntroduction 1
1.1 H umans Are Social Beings 3
1.2 T ransnational Social Support 4
1.3 D igital Connectivity 5
1.4 T e Study 7
1.5 T e Field 10
1.6 O rganisation of Tis Book 20
References 25
2 F rom a Network Theory to a Social Phenomenon 27
2.1 T e “I, Me, Myself ” Approach 28
2.2 Transcending Borders: An Overview 32
2.3 T e Shift from Networks to Communities 39
2.4 Conception of Social Support 43
References 49
3 N ew Agency of Personal Communities 53
3.1 Media as the Agency 53
3.2 Is Co-Presence Necessary? 60
3.3 Media Use and Frequency 62
3.4 Diferent Dimensions of Media 72
References 75
vii
viii Contents
4 Network Constituents: Exploring Contents 79
4.1 International Student Mobility 79
4.2 Characteristics of Personal Networks 80
4.3 Disentangling the ‘Trans’ 85
References 99
5 N etwork Patterns: Combining Features 101
5.1 Four Network Typologies 104
5.2 Relation to Other Characteristics 115
5.3 Particularity Score 123
References 126
6 D eterminants of Social Support 127
6.1 P rocess of Social Support Exchange 127
6.2 P rediction of Social Support at the Network Level 130
6.3 E xploring Support Multiplexity 133
6.4 D iscussion 141
6.5 S ummary 147
References 150
7 C onclusion 153
7.1 I mplications 153
7.2 M obility and Its Efects 162
7.3 S trengths and Limitations 165
7.4 “ Digital” Social Transformation? 167
References 170
A ppendix A: Methodology 173
Appendix B: IntStudLink Questionnaire 181
Index 199
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Geographical distribution of the survey 11
Fig. 1.2 Te left-hand fgure shows the frequency of distribution of the
international students’ region-wise countries of birth (N = 236)
and the right-side fgure shows the distribution of international
students’ region-wise countries of residence (N  =  287), both
according to the fve geographical regions 14
Fig. 2.1 Geographical distance of the alters 36
Fig. 4.1 Network size (N = 287) 82
Fig. 4.2 Transnationality vs. density and transnationality vs. size 88
Fig. 4.3 Characteristics of the students by the proportion of transna-
tional ties 90
Fig. 4.4 Closeness by geographical distance 92
Fig. 4.5 Type of media channel used according to frequency by transna-
tionality 95
Fig. 5.1 Network typologies 108
Fig. 5.2 (A) Networking patterns key (B) Media use in Aslan’s network
(Like or Folow me) 109
Fig. 5.3 Media use in Luisa’s network (Let’s meet asap:)) 111
Fig. 5.4 Media use in Marie’s network (FaceTime or Skype?) 113
Fig. 5.5 Media use in Rebecca’s network (Where’s the party tonight?) 116
Fig. 6.1 Support exchange in networks  a. Type I: Like or Follow me?
b.  Type II: Let’s meet asap :) c. Type III: FaceTime or Skype?
d. Type IV: Where’s the party tonight? 128
ix
x List of Figures
Fig. 6.2 Clusters (Type I—Like or Follow me?, Type II—Let’s meet asap :),
Type III—FaceTime or Skype?, Type IV—Where’s the party
tonight?) by the support dimensions received (1-Emotional
support, 2-Instrumental support, 3-Instrumental support,
4-Social companionship) 131
Fig. 6.3 Clusters (Type I—Like or Follow me?, Type II—Let’s meet asap :),
Type III—FaceTime or Skype?, Type IV—Where’s the party
tonight?) by the support dimensions given (1-Emotional sup-
port, 2-Instrumental support, 3-Instrumental support, 4-Social
companionship) 132
Fig. B.1 Front cover of the online survey IntStudLink 181
Fig. B.2 Back cover of the online survey IntStudLink 182