Virtual Community
Description
"The Internet, and its applications such as email lists and bulletin boards took root in the 1970s in American research universities. On the prototypical email lists and bulletin boards, a virtual community was formed as researchers working together on projects eventually began using the ‘net’ to discuss other interests, in particular role-playing games and science fiction (Burnett & Marshall, 2003). This opened the door for an inclusive, utopian vision of the Internet to develop (Turner, 2005); a venue beyond the limits of geography and time, where information from the utilitarian to the trivial could be shared by all in an egalitarian space, and a place in which otherwise marginalized people could participate. It was also envisioned as a venue for bringing people with common values together, which might facilitate the development of real world social networks (Castells, 2001). Pioneers such as Howard Rheingold envisioned beneficial social networks, or on-line communities, created and maintained on the Internet (Rheingold, 1993). However, these visions of liberation have been counterbalanced by a more cautious concern about the prospect of the Internet both perpetuating the inequalities of the real world and also lacking the strength of interpersonal ties in communities of place (Proulx & Latzko-Toth, 2005). Moreover, Smith (2002) described six aspects of virtual interaction that differentiate actual and virtual communities: virtual interaction is aspatial, asynchronous, acorporal, has limited bandwidth, astigmatic and anonymous. Considering the seminal virtual community The WELL, he described that it was difficult for the members to define all forms of potential infractions of community standards and the appropriate consequences because there were always new perceived infractions being made by new members that had not yet assimilated into the community." (http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/457/575)