Online or Offline : Personal or Impersonal ?

“A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face.” - Wikipedia

Some examples of online communities include:

Facebook, Craigslist, MySpace, and Livejournal.

In contrast an offline community is:

A community is a social group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. - Wikipedia

Some communities are defined by:

Region (for example the Buffalo community), Guilds for ex: Teachers (if you are an educator you may belong to this), Interest Groups: Art (say you’re a, fan or collector)

What do these communities have in common? COMMUNICATION

“ The structural process that is associated with community is communication. Without communication there can be no action to organize social relations. The intimate nature of this relationship is best illustrated in the words community and communications. Both words stem from same Latin root word, communis, which means common. Communis is a paired formation of the Latin etymons for either apparently there is some disagreement together (cum) and obligation (munis) or together and one (unus). By the time it appeared in English, common had a meaning that was in contradistinction to togetherness.”

Online Communities differ in several ways from offline communities one of these ways is…

Mode of communication:

Online - Generally online communities use internet sources such as listserves, Instant Messaging, and web forums to stay in touch.

Listserves-

Provide contact through email to all members

Instant Messages-

Provide contact via messages that happen in real-time from one or person to another.

Web Forums-

Provides contact where various people in the community can exchange information for others to see and react to.

Offline- Generally offline communities use other mediums of communication such as face-to-face, mail, and telephone.

Face-to-face-

Contact between one or more persons in the group in person ex: a meeting

Mail-

A mass distribution of mail is sent to all group members

Telephone-

One member contacts another through the phone, conference calling is also an option, where more than one member can communicate

Problems w/ communities:

- They may be difficult to form: Maybe you have an obscure passion; it may be hard to find enough people to be a part of your community.

- Communication can become entangled or detached: Especially online, some people may be more Internet savvy than others.

Some issues with online communities:

- Information may be misleading/unlcear – since most of the communication is written ( using instant messaging, blogs, email) it is absolutely necessary to be clear and concise, avoiding loaded terms & jargon.

- People may not be who they claim to be – as we mentioned in other blogs sometimes people assume other online identities so we have to be weary of who we are speaking to and what their intentions may be.

- Information is instant & constant - Unlike most offline communities the flow of information can become endless, for instance you can email the community 24-7 and reply to information at any time or place.

- Communication may be of a personal nature but the physical contact is impersonal. There are ways you can speak to each other via the net and using webcams but it is still different than being in the same room.

Because of the information above-

Ties can be stronger- because you have much more constant communication. You may feel you can disclose more information because you are not face-2-face.

Ties can be weaker- You may never completely trust those on your online community because you suspect them to be misrepresenting themselves or even fear the possibility of this. You do not feel close connections because you have no personal contact.

Sources:

Community. (n.d). Retrieved October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community

Virtual Community. (n.d). Retrieved October 19, 2007, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community

Fernback, J., Thompson, B. (1995). Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?

Link to assignment 7