I am a Guardian: A case study of how an online community establishes its first symbolic boundaries (original) (raw)
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What does online community look like in the age of social networking? How do participatory culture platforms reflect both their designers’ intentions and the desires of their users? In this incisive and timely work, Adrienne Massanari discusses how culture is created and challenged on Reddit.com (the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet”). Reddit enables the sharing of original and reposted content from around the web, and provides a platform for like-minded individuals to commune around topics of interest – everything from the joys of drinking beer in a shower (/r/showerbeer) to celebrating the pleasures of tidy penmanship (/r/penmanshipporn). Massanari’s ethnographic work provides a detailed examination of the contradictions that shapes Reddit’s culture and how they reflect its role as an epicenter of geek culture. The book explores the ways in which community on Reddit is formed and solidified through play and humor, and the complex ways in which Redditors come together that demonstrate a deep capacity for altruism and charitable giving, but can easily lapse into mob action. It also explores the community’s troubling gender and racial politics and how some Redditors are carving out their own space on the site to fight back.
Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference …, 2005
Borrowing some concepts from the linguistic and semiotic traditions, the paper aims at understanding the nature of online (virtual) communities. First, it distinguishes two basic kinds of communities: communities where members just share something similar (paradigmatic communities) and communities where social relations are established through interactions (syntagmatic communities). On the basis of this distinction, the paper focuses on online communities and analyses the main critical issues concerning them, namely belonging, identity and interest. These issues are then discussed in the last part, where a semiotic approach to online communities is presented: interest is pivotal in order to define the semiosphere of a virtual community, i.e. the social space within the community where interactions are allowed and encouraged; belonging is a key factor for websites' communities, since it helps them becoming real syntagmatic communities; identity is as much important in websites as in videogames communities, since on the basis of the different identities considered, different play communities can be identified.
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Revista Română de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice, 2011
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Internet Research, 2005
Although weblogs are perceived as low-threshold tools to publish online, empowering individual expression in public, there is growing evidence of social structures evolving around weblogs and their influence on norms and practices of blogging. Emerging from connections between weblogs and their authors, weblog communities often do not have a shared space, clear boundaries, or clear membership, challenging researchers who want to study them. Initially intended to be a study in the delineation of weblog boundaries, the scope of defining these boundaries immediately overwhelmed traditional methods and tools. The problems that arose from using traditional link mining methods led to an exploration of alternative approaches of defining these communities. The purpose of this paper is to get an insight into methods of finding "life between buildings": virtual settlements where weblog communities may reside. We use Jones' (1997) theory of a virtual settlement and archaeological metaphor to address research challenges of locating weblog communities, suggest an iterative approach that includes refinement of research methods based on assumptions about community norms, practices and artefacts, and propose which artefacts could serve as indicators of community presence. Finally we present a pilot study which explores different methods of identifying community membership beginning with a known core member of a group of knowledge management bloggers.
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Qualitative Sociology Review, 2009
©2 20 00 05 5--2 20 00 09 9 Q Qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve e S So oc ci io ol lo og gy y R Re ev vi ie ew w V Vo ol lu um me e V V I Is ss su ue e 2 2 w ww ww w. .q qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve es so oc ci io ol lo og gy yr re ev vi ie ew w. .o or rg g 3 Q Qu ua al li it ta at ti iv ve e S So oc ci io ol lo og gy y R Re ev vi ie ew w Abstract Virtual-worlds research is a dynamic and growing interdisciplinary area in the social sciences and humanities. Sociological theory can play an important role in how virtual worlds are conceptualized and studied. Drawing on data from ethnographic projects on two distinct types of virtual worlds, an asynchronous text-based internet forum and a massively-multiplayer online game, I consider what social and cultural similarities these two types of virtual worlds have with one another, despite their radically different forms and functions. My comparative analysis is framed in terms of three questions. First, are virtual worlds temporary and/or intentional communities? Second, what are the frames of reference through which virtual-world communities are built? Third, how do boundaries function in virtual worlds? My discussion suggests some of the common social and cultural features of virtual worlds.