With the advent of Internet technologies, online communities have proliferated over the last three decades. People from dispersed locations are constantly coming together on virtual spots and are enabled by a wide range of software technologies to share common interests and concerns. With early emergent examples, online communities have received intensive study across various academic disciplines. This presentation aims at introducing the basic framework for understanding the specificities of online communities. The first section tries to construct an understanding of these communities by analysing their components. The second section exposes some of the influence spheres of this new virtual space. electronic media

1. Online Communities: The Socializing
Powers of Internet Technology
Mariam Bedraoui
Master Student
Moroccan American Studies
Hassan II University, Casablanca

2. Online Communities: Outline
A. Defining Online Communities
1. Key Components
a. Participants
b. Goals
c. Platforms
d. Medium
e. Criteria
2. Examples
B. Influence Areas
1. A Research Web
2. Online Learning Communities
3. Impact on Politics

3. Defining Online Communities

4. What are Online Communities?
Howard Rheingold defines online
communities as:
“Social aggregations that emerge from the
net when enough people carry on those
public discussions long enough with
sufficient human feelings, to form webs of
personal relationships in cyberspace.”
http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html
 Participants:
• Social aggregations
 Platforms/Medium
• Net
• cyberspace
 Goal
 Discussion
 Webs of personal
relationship

5. Online Communities: Key Components
Geographically
dispersed
Interest/goal
oriented
Heterogeneous Free- willed

6. Online Communities: Key Components
• Information exchange about a topic
• Social support and sharing
Communities
of Interest
• Pursuing educational courses
• Participation in the realization of
collective projects
Learners’
Communities
• Professional practice development
through sharing knowledge among
members of professional communities.
Communities
of Practice

7. Online Communities: Key Components
Forums and discussion boards
Video- sharing
Photo- sharing
Networks of blogs
Social tagging
Virtual worlds
Wikis

8. Online Communities: Key Components
 The supporting technologies have been
extensively developed over the last thirty
years.
1. Asynchronous Communication
Technologies:
• Email: one to one messages
• List servers
• Bulletin boards
2. Synchronous Communication
Technologies:
• Chat rooms
• Conferencing systems
• Multiuser domains

9. Online Communities: Key Components
 Not every interaction spot on the Internet is a
labelled a community.
 Researchers have devised different criteria to
include or exclude the communities from study.
 Preece (2001) specifies a set of criteria to check
online communities.
Sociability Usability
Number of participants
Number of messages per a
participant
Levels of policy
Speed of learning the
system
Productivity
User satisfaction
Retention of participants

10. Examples: Advogato

11. Examples: BabyCenter Community

12. Influence Areas

13. How online communities used by many business organisations
to develop and maintain a viable online marketplace.
How online communities help people improve their health care
decision-making.
How can one’ s national and ethnic culture background influence
his activities on online communities.
How online communities can alter notions of identity.
How reading and understanding others’ meaning from a text
leads to emotional contagion and patterned responses.
More Communities, More Research on

14. More Communities, More Research: Limitations
 Online communities based research abounds in
topics and perspectives, but the field seems not to
come of age yet. There is still a need for unifying
research trends that can accumulate to the level of
forming grounded theories.

15. Online Learning Communities
Challenges Discussion
1. The web technologies made
it possible for learning to take
place independently from time
and place
2. Successful online learning
experiences require a set of
technical and cognitive skills.
3. Online learning is highly is
self- initiated and goal
oriented.
1. This demands a high level of
moderation on the part of the
instructor and a strong
commitment on the part of
learners.
2. Traditional learning
environment may not prepare
learners to develop a
predisposition to online
learning.
3. The learner may feel
distracted and unmotivated.

16. Online Communities’ Impact on Politics
Achievements Discussion
1. OC are celebrated for
introducing post-
national identity politics.
2. OC are inducing political
changes.
3. OC are helping direct
democracy.
1. Territorial nationalism is
giving way to a cultural
sense of belonging to a
nation.
2. Power relations in the real
world are shaping the
virtual scene.
3. Politics in OC is pursued
by those who are already
engaged in practical
politics.

17. References
 Dasgupta, S. (2006). Encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies. Hershey, PA: Idea
Group Reference.
 Koh, J., Kim, Y.-G., Butler, B., & Bock, G.-W. (2007). Encouraging Participation in Virtual
Communities. Communications of the ACM. 50 (2), 68.
 Memmi, D. (2006). The nature of virtual communities. AI & Society. 20 (3), 288-300.
 Preece, J. (2001). Sociability and usability in online communities: determining and measuring
success. Behaviour & Information Technology, 20(5), 347-356
 Wilcox, A. (2007). Virtual Communities. Epidemiology. 18 (2), 185.
 http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/
 http://www.webjunction.org/technology/web-tools/articles/content/438203
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_community
 http://www.babycenter.com/
 http://www.advogato.org/
 http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi