A
virtual community is a
social
network of individuals who interact through specific
social media, potentially crossing geographical
and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. One of
the most pervasive types of virtual community operate under
social networking services consisting of various
online communities.
The term
virtual community is attributed to the book of the same
title by
Howard Rheingold, published in
1993. The book's discussion ranges from Rheingold's adventures on
The WELL,
computer-mediated communication and social groups
and information science. Technologies cited include
Usenet,
MUDs
(Multi-User Dungeon) and their derivatives
MUSHes and
MOOs,
Internet Relay
Chat (IRC),
chat rooms and
electronic mailing lists. Rheingold also points
out the potential benefits for personal psychological well-being, as well as for
society at large, of belonging to a virtual community.
Virtual communities all encourage interaction, sometimes focusing around a
particular interest or just to communicate. Some virtual communities do both.
Community members are allowed to interact over a shared passion through various
means: message boards, chat rooms, social networking sites, or virtual
worlds.
Purpose of virtual communities
A PLATO V terminal in 1981 displaying RankTrek application.
Virtual communities are used for a variety of social and professional groups;
interaction between community members vary from personal to purely formal. For
example, an email distribution list operates on an informational level.
Internet-based virtual communities
The explosive diffusion of the Internet since the mid-1990s fostered the
proliferation of virtual communities in the form of social networking services
and online communities. Virtual communities may synthesize
Web 2.0 technologies with the community, and
therefore have been described as Community 2.0, although strong community bonds
have been forged online since the early 1970s on timeshare systems like
PLATO and later on
USENET. Online communities depend upon social
interaction and exchange between users online. This interaction emphasizes the
reciprocity element of the unwritten
social contract between community members.
Impacts of virtual communities
On health
Concerns with a virtual community's tendency to promote less socializing
include: verbal aggression and inhibitions, promotion of suicide and issues with
privacy. However, studies regarding the
health effects of these communities did not show any negative effects. There was
a high drop-out rate of participants in the study. The health-related effects
are not clear because of the lack of thoroughness and the variation in studies
done on the subject.
Rather, recent studies have looked into development of health related
communities and their impact on those already suffering health issues. These
forms of social networks allow for open conversation between individuals who are
going through similar experiences, whether themselves or in their family. Such
sites have in fact grown in popularity, so much so that now many health care
providers are forming groups for their patients, even providing areas where
questions may be directed to doctors. These sites prove especially useful when
related to rare medical conditions. People with rare or debilitating disorders
may not be able to access support groups in their physical community, thus
online communities act as primary means for such support. It can serve as an
outlet of support by connecting with others who truly understand the disease, as
well as more practical support, such as receiving help adjusting to life with
the disease.
[9] Involvement in social communities of
similar health interests has created a means for patients to further develop a
better understanding and behavior towards treatment and health practices.
[10][11] Patient
use such outlets on more occurrences, but the extent to which these practices
have on health as a result of use are still being studied.
Studies on health networks have mostly been conducted on groups which
typically suffer the most from extreme forms of diseases, for example cancer
patients, HIV patients, or other life threatening diseases. It is general
knowledge that one participates in online communities to interact with society
and develop relationships.
[12] Individuals who suffer from severe
illnesses are unable to do in a public sense; it could be a risk to their health
to leave a secure environment. Thus, they have turned to the internet. A study
conducted by Haven B. Battles and Lori S. Wiener on the effects of networks on
children suffering from incurable diseases reveal a positive correlation in
enhancing children’s behaviors and overall moods.
[13] Their
behavior and mood not only changed, but they were more willing to go to
treatment after having these interactions.
[14]
In addition to communities which focus strictly on information relating to
illness and disease, there are also those which focus on specific health based
conditions such as fertility issues. Some studies have indicated that virtual
communities can provide a valuable benefit to its users. Online communities
focused in health were shown to offer a unique form of emotional support that
differed from event based realities and informational support networks. There is
a growing amount of material being presented about how online communities affect
the health of its users. It appears that the creation of communities have a
positive impact on those who are ill or in need of medical information.
[15]
On civic participation
New forms of civic engagement and citizenship have emerged from the rise of
social networking sites. Networking sites acts as a medium for expression and
discourse about issues in specific user communities. Online content sharing
sites have made it easy for youth to not only express themselves and their ideas
through digital media, but also connect with large networked communities. Within
these spaces, young people are pushing the boundaries of traditional forms of
engagement such as voting and joining political organizations and creating their
own ways to discuss, connect, and act in their communities.
[16]
Types of virtual communities
Internet message boards
An Internet
forum powered by
phpBB
An online
message board is a forum where
people can discuss thoughts or ideas on various topics. Online message centers
allow users to choose which thread, or board of discussion, users would like to
read or contribute to. A user will start a discussion by making a post on a
thread. Other users who choose to respond can follow the discussion by adding
their own post to that thread. Message boards are not conversation based because
user responses do not have to take place right away. Whenever the user revisits
the message board, he/she can make a response. Unlike a conversation, message
boards do not have an instantaneous response and require that users actively go
to the site to check for responses.
Anyone can register to participate in an online message board. A message
board is unique because people can choose to participate and be a part of the
virtual community, even if they choose not to contribute their thoughts and
ideas. Registered users can simply view the various threads or contribute if
they choose to. Message boards can also accommodate an almost infinite number of
users, while the number of users who can be accommodated by a single chat room
is limited at least in practice.
Internet users' urges to talk to and reach out to strangers online opposes
real-life encounters where people are hesitant and often unwilling to step in to
help strangers. Studies have shown that people are more likely to intervene if
they are the only one in the situation. With Internet message boards, a user
sitting at his or her computer is the only one present in their online
experience, which might have to do with why they are more willing to reach out.
Another possible reason for this is that people can withdraw from a situation
much easier online. They can simply click exit or log off, whereas they would
have to find a physical exit and deal with the repercussions of trying to leave
a situation in real life. The lack of status that is presented with an online
identity also might encourage people because if you choose to keep it private,
there is no label of gender, age, ethnicity or lifestyle associated with
yourself.
[17]
Online chat rooms
An example of an IRC chat session on Xaric, a text-based
client. Shown are two IRC channels and a private conversation.
Shortly after the rise of interest in message boards and forums, people
started to want a way of communicating with their "communities" in real time.
The downside to message boards was that people would have to wait until another
user replied to their posting, which, with people all around the world in
different time frames, could take awhile. The development of online
chat rooms allowed people to talk to whoever was
online at the same time they were. This way, messages were sent and online users
could immediately respond back.
The original development by
CompuServe CB
hosted forty channels in which users could talk to one another in real time. The
idea of forty different channels led to the idea of chat rooms that were
specific to different topics. Users could choose to join an already existent
chat room they found interesting, or start a new "room" if they found nothing to
their liking. Real time chatting was also brought into virtual games, where
people could play against one another and also talk to one another through text.
Now, chat rooms can be found on all sorts of topics, so that people can talk
with others who share similar interests. Chat rooms are now provided by
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and other individual
websites such as Yahoo, MSN, and AOL.
Chat room users communicate through text based messaging. Most chat room
providers are similar and include an input box, a message window, and a
participant list. The input box is where users can type their text based message
to be sent to the providing server. The server will then transmit the message to
the computers of anyone in the chat room so that it can be displayed in the
message window. The message window allows the conversation to be tracked and
usually places a time stamp once the message is posted. There is usually a list
of the users who are currently in the room, so that people can see who is in
their virtual community.
Users can communicate as if they are speaking to one another in real life.
This "like reality" attribute makes it easy for users to form a virtual
community, because chat rooms allow users to get to know one another as if they
were meeting in real life. The individual "room" feature also makes it more
likely that the people within a chat room share a similar interest; an interest
that allows them to bond with one another and be willing to form a
friendship.
[18][19]
Virtual worlds
Scene from
Second Life, a party in Hyrule.
Virtual worlds are the most interactive
of all virtual community forms. In this type of virtual community, people are
connected by living as an
avatar in a
computer-based world. Users create their own avatar character (from choosing the
avatar's outfits to designing the avatar's house) and control their character's
life and interactions with other characters in the 3-D virtual world. It is
similar to a computer game, however there is no objective for the players. A
virtual world simply gives users the opportunity to build and operate a fantasy
life in the virtual realm. Characters within the world can talk to one another
and have almost the same interactions people would have in reality. For example,
characters can socialize with one another and hold intimate relationships
online.
This type of virtual community allows for people to not only hold
conversations with others in real time, but also to engage and interact with
others. The avatars that users create are like humans. Users can choose to make
avatars like themselves, or take on an entirely different personality than them.
When characters interact with other characters, they can get to know one another
not only through text based talking, but also by virtual experience(such as
having avatars go on a date in the virtual world). A chat room form of a virtual
community may give real time conversations, but people can only talk to one
another. In a virtual world, characters can do activities together, just like
friends could do in reality. Communities in virtual worlds are most similar to
real life communities because the characters are physically in the same place,
even if the users who are operating the characters are not. It is close to
reality, except that the characters are digital.
[20]Second Life is one of the most popular virtual
worlds on the Internet.
Another use for virtual worlds has been in business communications. Benefits
from virtual world technology such as photo realistic avatars and positional
sound create an atmosphere for participants that provides a less fatiguing sense
of presence. Enterprise controls that allow the meeting host to dictate the
permissions of the attendees such as who can speak, or who can move about allow
the host to control the meeting environment. Several companies are creating
business based virtual worlds including
Second
Life. These business based worlds have stricter controls and allow
functionality such as muting individual participants, desktop sharing, and/or
access lists to provide a highly interactive and controlled virtual world to a
specific business or group. Business based virtual worlds also may provide
various enterprise features such as Single Sign on with third party providers,
or Content Encryption.
Social network services
Facebook
on the Ad-tech 2010
Social networking services are the most
prominent type of virtual community. They are either a website or software
platform that focuses on creating and maintaining relationships. Facebook,
Twitter, and Myspace are all virtual communities. With these sites, one often
creates a profile or account, and adds friends or follow friends. This allows
people to connect and look for support using the social networking service as a
gathering place. These websites often allow for people to keep up to date with
their friends and acquaintances’ activities without making much of an
effort.
[21] On Facebook, for example, one can
upload photos and videos, chat, make friends, reconnect with old ones, and join
groups or causes.
[22] All of these functions encourage
people to form a community, large or small, on the Internet.
Specialized Information Communities
Screenshot of Stack Overflow as of December 2011
Participatory Culture plays a large role in online and virtual communities.
In Participatory Culture, users feel that their contributions are important and
that by contributing, they are forming meaningful connections with other users.
The differences between being a producer of content on the website and being a
consumer on the website become blurred and overlap. According to Henry Jenkins
"Members believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of social
connection with one another "(Jenkins, et al. 2005). The exchange and
consumption of information requires a degree of "digital literacy," such that
users are able to "archive, annotate, appropriate, transform and recirculate
media content" (Jenkins). Specialized information communities centralizes a
specific group of users who are all interested in the same topic. For example,
TasteofHome.com is a specialized information community that focuses on baking
and cooking. The users contribute and consumer information relating to their
hobby and additionally participate in further specialized groups and forums.
Specialized Information Communities are a place where people with similar
interests can discuss and share their experiences and interests.
Howard Rheingold's study
Howard Rheingold's
Virtual
Community could be compared with
Mark
Granovetter’s ground-breaking "strength of weak ties" article published
twenty years earlier in the
American Journal of
Sociology. Rheingold translated, practiced and published
Granovetter’s conjectures about strong and weak ties in the online world. His
comment on the first page even illustrates the social networks in the virtual
society: "My seven year old daughter knows that her father congregates with a
family of invisible friends who seem to gather in his computer. Sometimes he
talks to them, even if nobody else can see them. And she knows that these
invisible friends sometimes show up in the flesh, materializing from the next
block or the other side of the world." (page 1). Indeed, in his revised version
of
Virtual Community, Rheingold goes so far to say that had he read
Barry Wellman's work earlier, he would have
called his book "online
social
networks".
Rheingold's definition contains the terms "social aggregation and personal
relationships" (pp3). Lipnack & Stamps (1997) and Mowshowitz (1997) point
out how virtual communities can work across space, time and organizational
boundaries; Lipnack & Stamps (1997) mention a common purpose; and Lee, Eom,
Jung and Kim (2004) introduce "desocialization" which means that there is less
frequent interaction with humans in traditional settings, e.g. an increase in
virtual socialization. Calhoun (1991) presents a
dystopia argument, asserting the impersonality of
virtual networks. He argues that IT has a negative influence on offline
interaction between individuals because virtual life takes over our lives. He
believes that it also creates different personalities in people which can cause
frictions in offline and online communities and groups and in personal contacts.
(Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002). Recently, Mitch Parsell (2008) has
suggested that virtual communities, particularly those that leverage Web 2.0
resources, can be pernicious by leading to attitude polarization, increased
prejudices and enabling sick individuals to deliberately indulge in their
diseases.
[23]
Advantages of Internet communities
Internet communities offer the advantage of instant information exchange that
is not possible in a real-life community. This interaction allows people to
engage in many activities from their home, such as: shopping, paying bills, and
searching for specific information. Users of online communities also have access
to thousands of specific discussion groups where they can form specialized
relationships and access information in such categories as: politics, technical
assistance, social activities, health (see above) and recreational pleasures.
Virtual communities provide an ideal medium for these types of relationships
because information can easily be posted and response times can be very fast.
Another benefit is that these types of communities can give users a feeling of
membership and belonging. Users can give and receive support, and it is simple
and cheap to use.
[24]
Economically, virtual communities can be commercially successful, making
money through membership fees, subscriptions, usage fees, and advertising
commission. Consumers generally feel very comfortable making transactions online
provided that the seller has a good reputation throughout the community. Virtual
communities also provide the advantage of
disintermediation in commercial transactions,
which eliminates vendors and connects buyers directly to suppliers.
Disintermediation eliminates pricey mark-ups and allows for a more direct line
of contact between the consumer and the manufacturer.
[25]
Disadvantages of Internet communities
While instant communication means fast access, it also means that information
is posted without being reviewed for correctness. It is difficult to choose
reliable sources because there is no editor who reviews each post and makes sure
it is up to a certain degree of quality. Everything comes from the writer with
no filter in between.
[26]
In theory, online identities can be kept anonymous which enables people to
use the virtual community for fantasy role playing as in the case of
Second
Life's use of avatars. Some professionals urge caution with users who
use online communities because predators also frequent these communities looking
for victims who are vulnerable to online
identity
theft or
online predators
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