RQ1 sought to identify who the key actors/players in the Wisconsin archival community
were when they exchange and share information on Facebook. Consequently, H01 measured the
WAFC in terms of closeness, betweenness, and degree. Most of the actors that had a high degree
centrality were archives in the WAFC. This means that most information that is shared within the
WAFC is being created and disseminated by archives. However, there were a significant
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means that if archives can harness and open their network, more information from other actors
can be created and shared as well, thus developing a stronger online community.
People are highly connected in the closeness centrality measure; this category has the highest direct connectivity out of any other group in the WAFC. This finding demonstrates the
importance of engaging with other WAFC members as it is not just the influence from archive
institutions that is important, but also the finding that the online activity of people is a highly
influential direct group.
Archive was found to be the top holders of betweenness measurements in the WAFC. This means that archives have a lot of power over the information that is shared and distributed in the
network. However, this puts more pressure on archives to ensure that they are the makers of their
own design within the network; meaning that other participants are not in a position in the WAFC
network to create new ties. Consequently, it is important for archives to articulate to other
participants of other information within the network as this will ensure healthy growth of the
network and bring in other ideas and information. These three centrality measurements: degree,
closeness, and betweenness all provided critical information about the WAFC.
RQ2 sought to determine the differences among the actor affiliations in the WAFC when
they exchange and share information on Facebook. H02 was created to answer RQ2, which stated,
there are no significant differences among actor affiliations in terms of interactions (degree,
closeness, and betweenness) on the Wisconsin archive Facebook community. H02 was divided into
three sub-hypotheses to measure each interaction. H02(a), H02(b), and H02(c) were rejected as there
were significant differences among actor affiliations on the Wisconsin archive Facebook
community (WAFC) in term of centralities (degree, closeness, and betweenness). The actor
affiliation that had the highest measurement for each centrality was archive. This means that most
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The degree, closeness, and betweenness centrality measurements findings emphasize the
importance that other affiliation groups can strengthen one’s connectivity within the network. For
instance, university and cultural institutions often had high degree and closeness measurements.
However, those two measurements illustrate that in a network environment, it is not enough to be
connected to one’s own affiliation; meaning the more diverse the group, the more likely that the
influence of information can be betweenness measurements, not as large as archive, but still
important results. Consequently, diversifying the actors within one’s network can strengthen the
connectedness within the network as it increases the likelihood that other networks and actors can
be reached.
Three major areas of analysis were revealed by RQ3: first, the originality of the posts;
second, the keywords and their uniqueness. The third and final area is the themes revealed by the
thematic analysis and the testing of the associated hypothesis H03. These areas are discussed in
this section. More emphasis on the practical significance of these findings is in Section 4.6.1.2
Content sharing and 4.7 Implications.
The thematic analysis schema reveal four major areas that WAFC members create:
archive story, communication, information, and outreach. The associated hypothesis, H03, was rejected, meaning that there are significant differences amongst the subject schema. For instance,
Archive story relates to the emphasis that an archive places on its collection, history, and community. Being the largest subject topic discussed, it has obvious importance to the WAFC.
Posts in this category are centered on connecting a WAFC member with an item or items in the
archive collection; for instance, announcing that a new collection was donated by a university and
employee A was currently processing the material. The post might also entail a picture of the
employee working on the collection, and might include information regarding how processing
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The importance of the use of archive story is further emphasized by the keyword analysis
where ‘year’ (55% reoccurrence), ‘archive name’ (10% reoccurrence), ‘archive material’ (5%
reoccurrence), ‘cultural institutions’ (4% reoccurrence), and ‘holiday’ (3% reoccurrence) were all
important keywords in the WAFC. In addition, these posts were made by adding a picture which
yielded a high return in interactions. However, posts with videos were the highest interaction
return type.
Communication posts were the second highest category in the WAFC. Part of many archives’ mission statements is to reach out and connect with the community. The purpose is two
part, one to help the community realize that the archive holds important material that is available
to many people (unless the archive is private), and secondly, to ensure that the community will
continue to utilize archive services through future donations of archival material. Communication
had the second highest number of interactions.
Outreach posts were the way that archives articulated workshops, events, and other face to face engagements. These posts provided information to other WAFC members of events going on
at the archive. There were some instances of the archive sharing information regarding an event
going on locally by maybe a parent institution or a local gallery that was hosting an event.
Outreach posts also entailed the engagement of sharing archival practices with WAFC members. Outreach did not yield a lot of interactions. It is possible that by ‘tagging’ other people or
institutions in the post or by providing more information regarding an event other than a simple
link (just like the communication posts that utilized links the most) might generate more
discussion amongst users. For instance, if the archive is hosting an event, perhaps by ‘tagging’ a
local entity that might be interested in the event as well could be a way to make new connections.
Information posts were the most basic posts made by the WAFC. Time pending information was often articulated; for instance, the archive closing early to due to a weather
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warning or other types of information posts included job postings. Information had the lowest
number of interactions, which is not unexpected given the ‘one and done’ type of content shared
via these posts.
The primary reason for the rejection of H03 is that the WAFC has different emphases on
the four themes in terms of their interactions on Facebook. The WAFC was more focused on
archive story (358) than communication (54), outreach (28), and information (18). This finding means that suggestions will be able to be developed for archives in terms of what followers
interacted with the most. For instance, if archivists were to balance the type of posts, instead of
focusing on only archive story, different types of discussions could take place. The themes
combined with the interaction activities provide a deeper analysis of the WAFC.
There were differences in the number of interactions that occurred within the thematic
analysis. Archive story yielded the highest number of interactions with 1,005, followed by
communication with 367, then outreach at 138, and information had 87 for a total number of interactions of n = 1,597. The interactions include ‘like’, comment’, ‘comment likes’, ‘tag’, and
‘share’.
RQ4 sought how to understand characteristics about posts (use of pictures, use of
embedded hyperlinks, and use of digital collections) and their influence on online activities by the
WAFC. Three hypotheses were generated from RQ4. H04 measured the influence of pictures in
posts in the WAFC and found a significant difference in posts with a picture and without a
picture. H05 measured the influence of hyperlinks in posts in the WAFC and found that there was a
significant difference in the posts with a hyperlink and posts without a hyperlink. H06 measured
posts by those WAFC with digital collections and posts by those without digital collections and
found that the hypothesis was rejected as there was a significant difference in posts with digital
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the use of hyperlinks decreases the likelihood that interaction will occur. Likewise, the lack of a
digital collection typically had more interaction in themes regarding information, communication,
and outreach. These findings are discussed in more depth in Section 4.6.1.3 WAFC Post
Characteristics.
The rejection of the three hypotheses revealed that posts with pictures had increased online
activity levels, whereas, hyperlink posts boosted little online activity. In addition, the presence of
a digital collection to a post had increased online activity.