Index

The Johari Window has been well tested previously in to understand and improve interpersonal relationships within a group context. This is important as stronger communal bonds are less likely to be severed by members of the group or community (Luft, 1969). This suggests that stronger bonds between community members offer the potential for a stronger community to form. This is particularly significant in the context of the Internet, where people are more likely to simply ‘switch off’ and leave the community than ‘real life’ communities. In terms of competition to Habbo such communities will last longer over time, be more ‘sticky’ and attract a greater frequency of use. This will undoubtedly occupy greater mindshare of the teen audience and therefore represents greater competition.

Despite being a pre-internet model the Johari Window is still widely applicable to contemporary online group dynamics. This is useful in understanding the strength of the bonds between group members in general and looks at how different social interaction increases the strength of such bonds. As such this can also be applied in aiding understanding of the group dynamics of an online community. It specifically helps us understand the degree to which the players in the market facilitate the development of strong bonds between members via the social interaction within them. By implication this is suggested to offer the potential of a stronger online community and greater competitive threat.

The application of this model is underpinned by Baym’s (1999) identification of ‘group motivation’ as a key factor in the development of online communities specifically. The use of the Johari Window, however, attempts to focus Baym’s (1999) set of factors that influence the feeling of a community. This isolates group and social motivations as a key consideration when analysing the level of social interaction within the identified competitive set. Indeed as Baym (1999) suggests;

Members of groups creatively exploit the system’s features … if these emergent features develop into stable group-specific understandings, the group gains the potential to be imagined as a community” (Baym, 1999:p51)

It is through looking at if and how competitors in the market facilitate interaction and thus the group motivations of community members. Then we can understand whether these motivations can actually be realised and that they can be considered a threat to Habbo.

As this model was originally intended for interpersonal communication arguably it is not suitable in a community context. The interactions the Johari Window deals with are appropriate for many communication models (e.g. from one-to-one to many-to-many). Self-disclosure to a mass of people can be seen and suggests it is scalable to a group of any size. It provides us with an understanding of the potential social interaction down to individual interactions. This approaches analysis from an individual’s perspective by looking at the self in relation to ‘others’ within the wider community. This is the same for any given number of people and ensures observations area as valid in massive communities of millions of people and can be used in future analysis.