User population and user contributions to virtual publics

This paper provides a comprehensive review of empirical research into user contributions to computer-mediated discourse in public cyber-spaces, referred to here as virtual publics. This review is used to build a systems model of such discourse. The major components of the model are i) critical mass, ii) social loafing, and iii) the collective impact of individual cognitive constraints on the processing of group messages. By drawing these three components into a single model it becomes possible to describe the shape of a “user-contributions/user-population function” after controlling for context.