Thinking about the virtual 2

50% of the group actively asserted that digital technologies make real life easier, whilst 75% of the group agreed that online communication supports offline community and this was used to initiate a discussion of how the virtual relates to the ‘real’. The group were asked how they conceptualised these modes and whether together they constituted a process.Elaine asserted that virtual lifeis part of the process [of real life], it’s not totally separate, because somehow, there is some way that these...

Community and virtual community

Community and virtual community were discussed together. The group were asked ‘what are your views of community?’.Daz pointed out that ‘we are a community right now’ and Kevin interjected, a ‘community of people talking about communities’. In this context, it appeared that this suggested proximity and an emphasis on communication and similar interests. Kevin asserted that an online community is very similar to an offline community, it has to be similar, in the sense that, in the real world […]...

Recent use of digital technologies

The focus group was initiated with the question:When was the last time you used a digital technology to communicate, what was it, who was it with , how many people were involved and how did you perceive the experience in terms of community?Anthony had used email several minutes before the focus group convened, to contact a girlfriend and Daz used a mobile telephone 3 hours before to send a text message to a friend. Kevin had recently used Yahoo Messenger to discuss university work with other students,...

Virtual community

There is a vast corpus of literature relating to the ‘virtual community’ debate. In order to synthesise ideas from this literature, an analytical framework rests on identification of an ideological line, which divides the debate into two classifications; on the one hand there are ‘optimists’ and the other ‘pessimists’. This framework is an ‘ideal type’, which serves to simplify a complex reality. Generally, this is conventionally how the debate has been organised: ‘Utopian rhetoric’, frequently associated with technological determinism, versus a more critical discourse (Dovey 1996:xiii). Wellman and Gulia characterise the debate as one of ‘hope,...

Identity

Donath asserts that ‘[i]dentity plays a key role in virtual communities’ (Donath 1999:29). Identity encompasses the features of an individual’s character and ‘what is meaningful to them’. Components of identity include social class, gender and ethnicity for example (Giddens 2001:691). Donath asserts that as communication is primary in online discourse, ascertaining the identity of interactants is central ‘for understanding and evaluating an interaction’. She argues that identity is grounded, in...

Thinking about the virtual

Lévy asserts that reality ‘implies a material embodiment, a tangible presence’, that is an entity exists with clearly defined limits (Lévy 1998:23,34). In other words, it is ‘the material objectivity of the world, the reality ‘which everybody can clearly see’’.However, he views this as dynamic and implies that imagination produces a subjective reality that is socially constructed (Lévy 2001 a:1). Lévy emphasises a reconstitution of reality, created collectively and based on electronic networks:...

Community

Words have meanings: some words, however, also have a ‘feel’. The word ‘community’ is one of them (Bauman 2001:1).Preece discusses the difficulty of defining community, asserting that ‘for years, sociologists have defined and redefined the concept’ (Preece 2000:14). She refers to Abercrombie who asserts that the term ‘is one of the most illusive in sociology’ (ibid. 2000:175). Baym agrees and refers to Fernback who asserts thatCommunity is a term which seems readily definable to the general public...

INTRODUCTION

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