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The agglomeration of all online communities is sometimes called the Metaverse . OVERVIEW The idea that media could generate a community is quite old. In the 17th-century , scholars associated with the Royal Society of London formed a community through the exchange of letters.Pears, Iain. 1998. An Instance of the Fingerpost. London: Jonathan Cape. '' described how different technologies, such as national newspapers, contributed to the development of national and regional consciousness among early nation-states. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. The term "community", when used to describe virtual communities, is contentious among some circles. The traditional definition of a community is of a geographically circumscribed entity (neighborhoods, villages, etc). Virtual communities, of course, are usually dispersed geographically, and therefore are not communities under the original definition. However, if one considers communities to simply possess boundaries of some sort between their members and non-members, then a virtual community is certainly a community. The idea of neatly bounded communities is also being critiqued, since communities are fluid just as much as they are static, with members joining and leaving and even being part of different communities simultaneously.Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia. "Net Surfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities." Pp. 167-94 in Communities in Cyberspace, edited by Marc Smith and Peter Kollock. London: Routledge, 1999. The term ''virtual community'' is attributed to the book of the same title by Howard Rheingold , published in 1993 . The book discussed his adventures on The WELL and onward into a range of computer-mediated communication and social groups. The technologies included Usenet , MUD s (Multi-User Dungeon) and their derivatives MUSH es and MOO s, IRC ( Internet Relay Chat ), Chat Room s and Electronic Mailing List s; the World Wide Web as we know it today was not yet used by many people. Rheingold pointed out the potential benefits for personal psychological well-being, as well as for society at large, of belonging to such a group. Rheingold’s ''Virtual Community'' could be compared with Mark Granovetter’s ground-breaking "strength of weak ties" article published twenty years earlier in the '''s work earlier, he would have called his book "online Social Network s". A virtual community still does not have a universal definition. 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, eg. 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. It believe that it also creates different personalities in people which can cause frictions in offline and online communities and groups and in personal contacts. However, more than a decade of research has not supported Calhoun's arguments. (Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002). Synthesizing the definitions might suggest that: A virtual community is a Social Network with a common interest, idea, task or goal that interact in a virtual society across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships. Different virtual communities have different levels of interaction and participation among their members. This ranges from adding comments or tags to a blog or message board post to competing against other people in online video games such as MMORPG s. Not unlike traditional social groups or clubs, virtual communities often divide into cliques or even separate to form new communities. Author Amy Jo Kim points out a potential difference between traditional structured online communities (message boards, chat rooms, etc), and more individual-centric, bottom-up social tools (blogs, instant messaging buddy lists), and suggests the latter are gaining in popularity. Today, ''virtual community'' or ''online community'' is used for a variety of social groups interacting via the Internet. It does not necessarily mean that there is a strong bond among the members, although Rheingold mentions that virtual communities form "when people carry on public discussions long enough, with ''sufficient human feeling,'' to form webs of personal relationships" {Link without Title} . An email distribution list may have hundreds of members and the communication which takes place may be merely informational (questions and answers are posted), but members may remain relative strangers and the membership turnover rate could be high. This is in line with the liberal use of the term '' Community ''. 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 days of USENET . Virtual communities depend upon social interaction and exchange between users online. This emphasizes the Reciprocity element of the unwritten Social Contract between community members. Web 2.0 is essentially characterized by virtual communities such as Flickr , Facebook , and Del.icio.us . The ability to interact with like-minded individuals instantaneously from anywhere on the globe has considerable benefits, but virtual communities have bred some fear and criticism. Virtual communities can serve as dangerous hunting grounds for online criminals, such as Identity Thieves and Stalker s, with children particularly at risk. Others fear that spending too much time in virtual communities may have negative repercussions on real-world interaction (see Internet Addiction Disorder ). The explosive diffusion of the Internet since the mid-1990s has also fostered the proliferation of virtual communities. The nature of those communities is diverse, and the benefits that Rheingold envisioned are not necessarily realized, or pursued, by many. At the same time, it is rather commonplace to see anecdotes of someone in need of special help or in search of a community benefiting from the use of the Internet. MEMBERSHIP LIFE CYCLE FOR VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES A membership life cycle for online communities was proposed by Amy Jo Kim (2000). It states that members of virtual communities begin their life in a community as visitors, or Lurker s. After breaking through a barrier, people become novices and participate in community life. After contributing for a sustained period of time they become regulars. If they break through another barrier they become leaders, and once they have contributed to the community for some time they become elders. This life cycle can be applied to many virtual communities, most obviously to Bulletin Boards , but also to Blogs and Wiki -based communities like Wikipedia . Legitimate peripheral participation Lave and Wengers' theories on situated cognition can illustrate the cycle of how users become incorporated into virtual communities using the principles of legitimate peripheral participation. They define five types of trajectories amongst a learning community: # Peripheral – An outside, unstructured participation # Inbound – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation # Insider – Full committed community participant # Boundary – A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions # Outbound – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks The following shows the correlation between the learning trajectories and Web 2.0 community participation. Learning trajectory — online community participation Example – YouTube Peripheral (Lurker) – Observing the community and viewing content. Does not add to the community content or discussion ''The user occasionally goes onto YouTube.com to check out a video that someone has directed them to.'' Inbound (Newbie) – Just beginning to engage the community. Starts to provide content. Tentatively interacts in a few discussions The user comments on other user’s videos. Potentially posts a video of their own. Insider (Regular) – Consistently adds to the community discussion and content. Interacts with other users. Regularly posts videos. ''Either videos they have found or made themselves. Makes a concerted effort to comment and rate other user’s videos. '' Boundary (Moderator/ Expert) – Recognized as a veteran participant. Connects with regulars to make higher concepts ideas. Community grants their opinion greater consideration. ''The user has become recognized as a contributor to watch. Possibly their videos are podcasts commenting on the state of YouTube and its community. The user would not consider watching another user’s videos without commenting on them. Will often correct a user in behavior the community considers inappropriate. Will reference other user’s videos in their comments as a way to cross link content.'' Outbound (Legacy) – Leaves the community for a variety of reasons. Interests have changed. Community has moved in a direction that doesn’t agree with. Lack of time. ''User got a new job that takes up too much time to maintain a constant presence in the community. That and the YouTube culture seems to be drifting to a corporate commercial endorsement model rather than a social, grassroots platform that it once was.'' INCREASING PARTICIPATION IN VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES Several motivations lead people to contribute to virtual communities. Various online media (i.e. Wikis , Blogs , Chat Rooms , Internet Forums , Electronic Mailing Lists ) are becoming ever greater knowledge-sharing resources. Many of these Communities are highly cooperative and establish their own unique Culture . They also involve significant time from contributors with no monetary gain. Some key examples of online knowledge sharing infrastructures include the following:
Several researchers have investigated motivation in virtual communities. Studies show that over the long term users gain a greater insight into the material that is being discussed and a sense of connection to the world at large. Kollock's framework Peter Kollock (1999) researched motivations for contributing to online communities. In "The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace", he outlines three motivations (Kollock:227) that do not rely on altruistic behavior on the part of the contributor:
There is another motivation, implicit in the above, which Mark Smith mentions in his 1992 thesis: ''Voices from the WELL: The Logic of the Virtual Commons'':
Anticipated reciprocity A person is motivated to contribute valuable information to the group in the expectation that one will receive useful help and information in return. Indeed, there is evidence that active participants in online communities get more responses faster to questions than unknown participants (Kollock 178). Increased recognition Recognition is important to online contributors such that, in general, individuals want recognition for their contributions. Some have called this Egoboo . Kollock outlines the importance of reputation online: “Rheingold (1993) in his discussion of the WELL (an early online community) lists the desire for prestige as one of the key motivations of individuals’ contributions to the group. To the extent this is the concern of an individual, contributions will likely be increased to the degree that the contribution is visible to the community as a whole and to the extent there is some recognition of the person’s contributions. … the powerful effects of seemingly trivial markers of recognition (e.g. being designated as an “official helper”) has been commented on in a number of online communities…” One of the key ingredients of encouraging a reputation is to allow contributors to be known or not to be anonymous. The following example, from Meyers (1989) study of the computer underground illustrates the power of reputation. When involved in illegal activities, computer hackers must protect their personal identities with pseudonyms. If hackers use the same nicknames repeatedly, this can help the authorities to trace them. Nevertheless, hackers are reluctant to change their pseudonyms regularly because the status associated with a particular nickname would be lost. Profiles and reputation are clearly evident in online communities today. Amazon.com is a case in point, as all contributors are allowed to create profiles about themselves and as their contributions are measured by the community, their reputation increases. Myspace.com encourages elaborate profiles for members where they can share all kinds of information about themselves including what music they like, their heroes, etc. In addition to this, many communities give incentives for contributing. For example, many forums award you points for posting. Members can spend these points in a virtual store. EBay is an example of an online community where reputation is very important because it is used to measure the trustworthiness of someone you potentially will do business with. With eBay, you have the opportunity to rate your experience with someone and they, likewise, can rate you. This has an effect on the reputation score. Sense of efficacy Individuals may contribute valuable information because the act results in a sense of efficacy, that is, a sense that they have had some effect on this environment. There is well-developed research literature that has shown how important a sense of efficacy is (e.g. Bandura 1995), and making regular and high quality contributions to the group can help individuals believe that they have an impact on the group and support their own self-image as an efficacious person. Wikipedia is a good example of an online community that gives contributors a sense of efficacy. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia which uses online software to enable anyone to create new articles and change any article in the encyclopedia. The changes you make are immediate, obvious, and available to the world. Sense of community People, in general, are fairly social beings and it is motivating to many people to receive direct responses to their contributions. Most online communities enable this by allowing people to reply back to contributions (i.e. many Blogs allow comments from readers, one can reply back to forum posts, etc). Again, using Amazon.com, other users can rate whether one's product review was helpful or not. Granted, there is some overlap between increasing reputation and gaining a sense of community. However, it seems safe to say that there are some overlapping areas between all four motivators. Bishop's framework A problem for providers of online communities is some of their members will not participate through posting messages. These members do not participate for a number of reasons, including that they believe they did not need to post and that they believe they are being helpful by not doing so. Other community members that have been participating for a long time, known as elders, regularly participate because they believe that their actions will have positive outcomes. Previous attempts to understand why community members participate or do not participate has suggested that individuals are needs-driven or goal driven. Maslow 's Hierarchical needs theory has suggested that the reason lurkers do not participate is that 'lower needs' are not being met, or 'higher needs' are being met elsewhere and that the reason elders do participate is that they are meeting their 'higher needs'. Theories that suggest that individuals are needs-driven and so-called needs are met in the order of a hierarchy are not suitable for online communities. It is quite likely that community members will desire to do two things at the same time, something that needs-based theories do not take into account. Theories that suggest that individuals are goal-driven are more appropriate for online communities as users will develop and change goals based on their interactions in an online community. However, these theories are not entirely appropriate for explaining why some individuals desire to participate in an online community, but do not actually do so. Virtual community pioneer Jonathan Bishop proposed an alternative framework for understanding such behaviours (see Bishop, 2007), which is based on the principles that individuals are driven to action by desires, these desires lead to plans that need to be consonant with their existing plans as well as their goals, values and beliefs, and how they carry out an action will depend on their interpretation of their environment. Some online community members, such as lurkers, believe that they do not need to post messages to online communities or believe that they are being helpful by not posting. Such beliefs prevent these individuals from carrying out their desires to be social and participate in the community. Bishop argues that online community providers should attempt to change these beliefs, even if it creates a degree of Cognitive Dissonance with the individual's cognitions. The use of persuasive text is the main means by which an individual's beliefs can be challenged, though providing alternative information to the beliefs that the individual holds whilst not being consonant with an actor’s goals. Challenging these beliefs may lead to the individual increasing their participation in online communities through allowing them to act out their desires. VIRTUAL COMMUNITY DESIGN Below are some guidelines that can be of use when trying to design an online community or foster a better knowledge sharing environment in your organization: Online community virtuous cycle See Also: Metcalfe's law See Also: Bass diffusion model Most online communities grow slowly at first, due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community. As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing. This, coupled with the fact that organizational culture does not change overnight, means creators can expect slow progress at first with a new virtual community. As more people begin to participate, however, the aforementioned motivations will increase, creating a virtuous cycle in which more participation begets more participation. It can be likened to a network, whereby the network's value is directly proportional to the square of the number of users it has. Many online community members describe their participation as "addictive". The growth in community adoption is often forecast (that is, estimating the number of users in the community) by use of the Bass Diffusion Model , a mathematical formula originally conceived by Frank Bass to describe the process by which new products get adopted as an interaction between users and potential users. BENCHMARK VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES
ADDITIONAL VIRTUAL COMMUNITY LISTINGS Discussion boards Social networking See article: List Of Social Networking Websites Art communities MUD, MUSH, MOO Ethnicity-based communities Other types
VIRTUAL COMMUNITY PIONEERS AND EXPERTS
SEE ALSO
NOTES FURTHER READING
REFERENCES AND EXTERNAL LINKS
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