The questions, links, and resource connections in this section look at the concept of place and community in the context of the World Wide Web and electronic environments. This thematic platform approaches this set of issues in two main ways:

• How does the Web make or represent communities? That is, how does the Web either represent physical communities virtually or create communities that only exist virtually?
  
  
• What is the relationship between virtual communities (online communities and activity) and physical and local communities? How might the Web strengthen communities and connections between people? How is the Web broadening or deepening the divisions (or borders) between people?
  
  

Questions and Activities

1. Can a true community exist online? How do virtual communities differ from local ones? What is a virtual community anyway? Does everyone mean the same thing when they use the term virtual community?
   
   
2. Look at the links in link set 1 (below). Each of these resources uses the term virtual community. Do they all mean the same thing by it? What are some of the different definitions of virtual community that you can induce from looking at these sites (or others that you come up with)? What is the relationship between the virtual meaning of community and physical community in each of these sites? Which ones don't refer to any physical space at all?
   
   
3. Use the link to Community Free-Nets to try and find the online (virtual) community for a place you know well. How is it represented? Does it look familiar? What is included? What's left out? How would you organize a virtual community for the place you live? What would it be good for?
   
   
4. How do people interact and communicate in virtual space? How is it different from or similar to face-to-face communication?
   
   
5. The links in link set 3 point to resources that explore the nature of virtual communities and interaction in cyberspace. Some of these resources are scholarly or academic resources. In general, they all treat the topic of how people interact in virtual communities as questions of research and investigation. Individually, or in groups, look at some of these resources. What are the research questions being asked? What issues are most interesting to the people doing this research? Do any of their questions about virtual communities remind you of other things you have read in other courses, on other issues?
   
   
6. What will be the relationship between online communities and other kind of communities, such as local communities or our concept of a national community? As people spend more and more of their time (and money) online, will face-to-face communication, and particularly local communities be damaged? How might online environments strengthen local and physical communities?
   
   
7. Look at the links in link set 2. These resources explore the impact that computers, technology, and the Internet are having on society. Two of them (Falling through the Net, and the United Nations report) report on the growing divide between classes, nations, or groups, in part as a result of technology and globalization. The third link connects to a review of a book called The Wired Neighborhood by Stephen Doheny-Farina (the author of an essay in Chapter 5). The review, written by Nick Carbone, raises a lot of interesting issues about the ways that the Internet and cyberspace can both strengthen and weaken physical communities. Looking across these resources, consider the role of the Internet in either of these possibilities. By what definition of community could you argue that the Internet helps strengthen social ties? By what definition of community could you argue that it weakens them, or reinforces social divisions?
   
   

Web-Text Connections

On the Web		In Beyond Borders
1.	Link Set 1. Sites that claim to represent a virtual community. Virtual Community of Tomorrow: Funk and Wagnall's Multimedia Encyclopedia Community Free-Nets	1.	These links connect to any of the readings in Beyond Borders about place and community, such as in Chapters 2, 3, and 4. In particular, you might consider these sites' construction of community next to Ruben Martinez's "Going Up in LA," Leonard Kreigel's "Tunnel Notes of a New Yorker," Kai Erickson's "Collective Trauma: Loss of Communality," or Daniel Kemmis's "The Last Best Place: The Hardship and Limits Build Community." Also you might look at the first four essays in Chapter 5 about virtual communities and cyberspace.
2.	Link Set 2. Resources exploring the technology gap and the relationship between the virtual and the local. Falling Through the Net, series of reports on the Digital Divide United Nations Report on Globalization (1999) Review by Nick Carbone of Stephen Doheny-Farina's The Wired Neighborhood	2.	Look at the resources here about the technology gap in connection with Chapter 2 and Chapter 3's readings on otherness, difference, and negotiating borders. In thinking about the global implications of technology, and the international dimensions of a global economy in general, look at the readings in Chapter 5, such as William Greider's "One World, Ready or Not"; Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld"; and Guillermo Gómez Peña's "The 90s Culture of Xenophobia: Beyond the Tortilla Curtain."
3.	Link Set 3. Academic resources and research on virtual communities. Howard Rheingold's book Virtual Community Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies Psychology of Virtual Communities Virtual Community Presence in Internet Relay Chatting (Web site for book) Virtual Worlds: Community Research and Development Projects	3.	Read these resources in connection with the readings listed above. See also the readings especially focused on identity and interaction in Chapter 3, such as Mary Louise Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone" and Sherry Turkle's "TinySex and Gender Trouble."

<< Back to Web Research Activities