Virtual communities what about them

1
Virtual communities what about them?

• Pille Vengerfeldt
• University of Tartu,
• Estonia
• Marie Curie Fellow
• in DCU

2
Talk will be about...

• Theoretical background
• Different types of communities
• Characteristics for communities
• Life cycle of communities

3
Definition

• Community is a social formation that shares
  qualities and is perceived somewhat different
  from the larger society
• Communities as self-defining interactive
  communication networks, that are organized around
  specific interests or purposes.

4
Historically...

• Gemeinshaft describing cosy realities where
  social relations are defined by locality,
  neighbourhood, shared responsibility and creating
  mutual well-being.

5
Imagined communities

• Mediated experience creates communities
• Mediated are
• Shared histories of shared how-to understandings
• Shared landscapes of unity
• Identifiers
• Not knowing every one in the community
• There are boundaries
• They are sovereignty and members expect to be
  free from outside interference
• In spite of hierarchies, there is feeling of
  camaraderie

6
Collective imagining

• Virtual communities and virtual space is a result
  of collective imagining. People who might not
  know each other and have never met, are dedicated
  to the same experience through defining a shared
  vision.

7
Creation of sustainability

• The ways how sustainability is created
• There are rules and horizons of possible
  activities.
• Topics that are defined are debatable, and open
  to critique and interference
• Generally accepted standards that improve the
  quality of the community

8
Urbanism

• In the situation of urbanism, communities...
• In the traditional sense disappear
• Become interest based
• Of closer personal relations disappear
• The social network of survival has disappeared /
  recreated in a different ways family is
  replaced by friends

9
Virtual communities

• People with shared interests meet online. They
  are brought together by the chance of shared
  community feeling with others who share their
  world views.
• Have always been there
• And can be formed in a number of different
  technical environments
• News-groups, chat rooms, forums, e-mail lists
  etc.

10
Different types of virtual communities

• Transaction based
• Interest based
• Geographical
• Fantasy
• Relationships
• Professionals
• Online communities are always about and limited
  to communicating

11
Ways in which communities can be formed

• Institutional
• Someone creates environment where, and topic
  around what, the community is generated
• Personal
• Community to interact with friends
• Community to test your skills
• Community based on personal interests

12
Possible characteristics of a community

• Shared jokes
• We/they notion
• Acceptance of other members
• Hierarchy
• Shared norms and rules
• Specified roles
• Shared memory based on external attributes

13
Power in cyber communities

• Technical power
• Source of power is code access or commands are
  the means
• Power of public opinion
• Source is respect

14
Life cycle of communities

• Birth of a community
• People invite other people, small group, strong
  authority by the creators
• Young community
• Enough people to still know each other, strong
  public opinion, a lot of public discussion,
  strong shared feeling of community
• From public to private circle
• Sub-communities emerge, public discussion loses
  its importance, too many people?
• Death of the community or creation of a new one

15
Story...

• Consider the following goal to create a clone
  of a powerful and complex computer operating
  system by asking programmers from around the
  world to donate their time and effort to the
  project. Operating system would be free for
  anyone who wanted it, regardless of whether they
  had contributed to the project or not
• Linux The Impossible Public Good, P. Kollock