Communities

The term community has come a long way from the notion of it being a group of people who live in a particular area, with a common purpose, share the same norms and values and interact in a social setting creating a ‘sense of community’ within the group. There a so many different definitions one being:

‘a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.’ Dictionary.com

With the Internet a new form of community developed, community can exist among a group of people who reside in different sides of the globe but share a common interest a mutual understanding. With the Internet an online community can exist transcending geographical limitations. An online or a virtual community can be defined as:

‘social aggregations that emerge from the Internet when enough people carry on public discussions long enough and with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.’ Howard Rheingold

There is an argument as to whether an online community is can be classed as a real community, if it is of equal quality as an ‘offline’ community. The stigmas attached to it that it is unsociable, isolated and can cause problem with identity development are all prevent in today society. But I think as long as people keep it in moderation and have face to face relationships as well then its just an extension to our social setting.

I believe in recent times people have more sense of belonging to people in their social networks sites than their neighbours.

‘bonds are formed through bonds of transient mutual interest instead of mutual obligation or proximity’ Caroline O’ Sullivan

It is human nature to connect and interact with people and whether its online or offline it enable them to adapt and mould into society.

Heres a nice video about online communities. Great track too!