Virtual Communities

Laying the Foundation for Exploring the Social Web

With the advent of the Internet as a means of disseminating information and fostering communication across the globe, the online world has been a rich proving ground for research in many fields of study. Studies of human-computer interaction (HCI), research into the early use of e-mail, user studies of searchers, systems analysis and more populate the literature. Recent research has also centered on virtual communities, examining online discussion groups as ‘place’ and the interactions that occur there.

Various researchers from multiple disciplines have applied their methods and models to virtual communities, creating a breadth of articles, studies and reviews. Why study virtual communities? The study of virtual communities is important because the pervasive nature of the Internet has linked the world in ways never imagined by early communicators and the impact on information retrieval environments is far-reaching. Future librarians may do their reference work in online communities as well as 21st Century libraries.

The tools of Web 2.0 create and encourage conversations that are playing out everyday in everyway about all manner of things. People want to talk to each other and the Web has enabled this like never before. Remember your first email discussion list? Your first post and subsequent discussion at a forum? I certainly remember mine – in 1994 I discovered a thriving community online focused on Twin Peaks and a burdgeoning Stevie Nicks community – who knew that now we’d find a community and ongoing conversation for practically every subject under the sun, as well as more ways to play those conversations out in virtual spaces.

Things to Read:

Things to Explore/Skim/Review:

For your Weekly blog post, please describe your first experioence in virtual communities online. Does that experience fir some of the definitions? What type of community was it? what behaviours did you find there?