VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

     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