Seteka-community8993566
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted number of people can initiate posts, such as Weblogs. Online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chat rooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.
he idea of a community is not a new concept. What is new, however, is transferring it over into the online world. Before, a community was defined as a group from a single location. If you lived in the designated area, then you became a part of that community. Interaction between community members was done primarily face-to-face and in a social setting. This definition for community no longer applies. In the online world, social interactions no longer have to be face-to-face or based on proximity, instead they can be with literally anyone anywhere.[2] The study of these communities has had to adapt along with the new technologies. Many earlier researchers used ethnography to attempt to understand what people do in online spaces, how they express themselves, what motivates them, how they govern themselves, what attracts people to participate, and why some people prefer to observe rather than contribute. Many other techniques have come about in an attempt to try and adjust to this new medium.
Online communities can congregate around a shared interest, but can be spread across multiple websites. There may be more than one website to go to to find any one online community or topic such as classifieds among other sources. What is particularly tricky about online communities is that their meaning can change depending on who is defining them. Universally, however, there are things that show signs of a community. They are:
Content: articles, information, and news about a topic of interest to a group of people. Forums or newsgroups and email: so that your community members can communicate in delayed fashion. Chat and instant messaging: so that the community members can communicate more immediately.
