VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES
A virtual community is known as any group of
people who use Internet technologies to communicate with each other. Depending
on whether one takes a social perspective or a technology perspective, online
communities tend to be named by the activity and people they serve or the
technology that supports them. For example the same community might be called a
'breast cancer patient support community' and a Teacher board community.
Moreover, virtual communities are defined as collectivities of people who share
a common experience, interest, or conviction; who experience a positive regard
for other members; and who contribute to member welfare and collective welfare
(Putnam, 2000 )virtual communities are used for a variety of social and
professional groups; interaction between community members vary from personal
to purely formal. For example, an email distribution list operates on an
informational level.
Impacts of virtual communities
On health
Concerns with a virtual community's tendency to promote less
socializing include: verbal anger and embarrassments, promotion of suicide and
issues with privacy.
Rather, recent studies have looked into development of health
related communities and their impact on those already suffering health issues.
These forms of social networks allow for open conversation between individuals
who are going through similar experiences, whether themselves or in their
family. Such sites have in fact grown in popularity, so much so that now many
health care providers are forming groups for their patients, even providing
areas where questions may be directed to doctors. These sites prove especially
useful when related to rare medical conditions. People with rare or
debilitating disorders may not be able to access support groups in their
physical community, thus online communities act as primary means for such
support. It can serve as an outlet of support by connecting with others who
truly understand the disease, as well as more practical support, such as
receiving help adjusting to life with the disease. Involvement in social
communities of similar health interests has created a means for patients to
further develop a better understanding and behavior towards treatment and
health practices. Patient use such outlets on more occurrences, but the extent
to which these practices have on health as a result of use are still being
studied.
On civic participation
New forms of civic engagement and citizenship have emerged from
the rise of social networking sites. Networking sites acts as a medium for
expression and discourse about issues in specific user communities. Online
content sharing sites have made it easy for youth to not only express
themselves and their ideas through digital media, but also connect with large
networked communities. Within these spaces, young people are pushing the
boundaries of traditional forms of engagement such as voting and joining
political organizations and creating their own ways to discuss, connect, and
act in their communities.
On communication
Yochai Benkler, in his book The Wealth of Networks from 2006,
suggests that virtual communities would ′come to represent a new form of human
communal existence, providing new scope for building a shared experience of
human interaction’. Although Benkler's prediction was not entirely correct,
however, it is clear that communications and social relations are extremely
complex within a virtual community. The two main effects that can be seen
according to Benkler are a ′thickening of preexisting relations with friends,
family and neighbors’ and the beginnings of the ′emergence of greater scope for
limited-purpose, loose relationships′. Despite being acknowledged as ′loose′
relationships, Benkler argues that they remain meaningful.
Previous concerns about
the effects of Internet use on community and family fell into two categories:
sustained, intimate human relations are critical to well-functioning human
beings as a matter of psychological need and that people with ′social capital′ are
better off than those who lack it and it leads to better results in terms of
political participation. However,
Benkler argues that unless Internet connections actually displace direct,
unmediated, human contact, there is no basis to think that using the Internet
will lead to a decline in those nourishing connections we need psychologically,
or in the useful connections we make socially. Benkler continues to suggest
that the nature of an individual changes over time, based on social practices
and expectations. There is a shift from individuals who depend on social
relations that are locally embedded, unmediated and stable relationships to
networked individuals who are more dependent on their own combination of strong
and weak ties, cross boundaries and weave their own fluid relationships. Manuel
Castells calls this the ′networked society′.
BY
KIMATI
ELITRUDAH. BAPRM 42582
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