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it will reach a significantly broader audience as
opposed to offline education. White and Dorman
(2001) describe how online knowledge sharing is
beneficial for those who cannot access offline edu-
cational material because of health-related issues.
Additionally, health promotion and community
education leveraging online knowledge sharing
can assist many people who might otherwise not
seek information due to possible embarrassment
or social stigma.
Interpersonal ICT media such as weblogs and
user-generated content do not require users to
pay for their use (Marcus & Perez, 2007), and it
leads online users to interact and share knowledge
with each other via online ICT media without
any financial worries. The cost-effectiveness of
online knowledge sharing is also a positive fac-
tor for education with offline health promotion
and community education requiring a significant
amount of financial resources for physical space
and other facilities.
Online ICT media offer faster and easier
knowledge sharing than offline sources. Online
social networks make possible more knowledge
dissemination with less effort. Group e-mail
or the forwarding of e-mails, are examples
of efficient modes of knowledge sharing. If
social educators use online knowledge shar-
ing strategies effectively, they will be able to
disseminate their information to many more
people with far less effort. The following case
study of e-Mavenism presents a model for online
knowledge sharing for health promotion and
community education.
& Willis-Flurry, 2005). In addition, users who
have many online sources have the tendency to
share their knowledge and information with other
people. Online knowledge sharing is encouraged
by the tendency for information sharing among
users.
The psychological tendency to share knowl-
edge with others via virtual interactive ICT me-
dia is termed “e-Mavenism.” e-Mavenism is a
concept adapted from marketing research which
has identified the concept of “Market mavens.”
Market mavens are people who are knowledge-
able in general marketing information and eagerly
disseminate their knowledge and information with
others in their social networks (Walsh, Gwinner,
& Swanson, 2004). We propose that the term “e-
Mavenism” is effective for explaining the tendency
to distribute and share valuable information with
others based on a set of common characteristics
in an online context.
First, online users exhibiting e-Mavenism and
market mavens have a common trait; they are
knowledgeable in terms of general information.
Phelps et al. (2005) defines mavens as people
who disseminate pass-along e-mail frequently.
Secondly, e-Mavenism and market mavens do
not create content such as opinion leadership, but
are simply information distributors (Walsh, et al.,
2004). Thirdly, they commonly disseminate their
own information and knowledge to other people
based on a sense of perceived responsibility and
altruism to others. Phelps et al. (2005) use the
term “viral maven” in a similar manner to our
use of e-Mavenism here.
If educators and professionals in health-related
education are to stimulate educational information
sharing via online media, they need to under-
stand the cognitive processes that lead to online
information distributing behavior. The cognitive
model of e-Mavenism presented in Figure 1 is a
useful framework for application in the human
services.
e-Mavenism is comprised of three constructs
including; internal motivation (altruism, obliga-
caSe StuDy: e-maveniSm
With the growth of online interactive ICTs, online
users who easily and efficiently search online
information have more virtual connections (or
social network contacts) and consequently are
more likely to become more knowledgeable in
terms of general information (Belch, Krentler,
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