Three Kinds of Online Community
It seems to me there are three kinds of online community.
First, there’s a sort of nebulous community brought together by interest – say, a blog with its regular commenters. The people there don’t meet physically or even necessarily have a stated goal – just a shared interest. But they get to know each other, and build off of each other’s contribution.
Second, there’s online communities devoted to some goal, for instance activist communities. This might include things like Indymedia, where there’s accountability and leadership structure but no set schedule of contribution. Another one is a group called Critical Mass – I was on their listserv for a while – and what they do is get people together to bike in DC. It’s really something of a protest, since DC is pretty unfriendly toward bicycles, and they certainly had to talk over issues like safety, dealing with cops, regrouping if you get scattered, etc. as well as what their goal was: whether they were going to follow all the laws or not.
Third, there are companies and full-time, established NGOs who work pretty nuch like a normal organization, with a hierarchy, payroll, meetings, and a work day, even if it’s not 9 to 5.
So let’s look at the most nebulous kind first, because this is where people’s motivations and identities are most purely influenced by the internet structure.
When you get on the internet, why do you do contribute? What’s your motivation? Because it’s fun. You update your Facebook profile, write a blog entry, comment on someone else’s blog, edit a Wikipedia article, and post a YouTube video of something you and your friends put together. You do all these things because it’s fun. And the result is your friends can know more about you, or other people in a community can get an impression of you and your opinions, or you can feel the satisfaction of improving something. All fun.
Let’s look at how individuals and communities form on the internet. And yes, I would say that individuals “form” on the internet, because who you “are” there is just whoever you present yourself to be. It’s your profile, your avatar, as it’s known in some groups. Building up an online identity – real or projected – by producing information or commentary establishes a personal connection, fan club, style, etc. which keeps attention. And when you can express yourself and people pay attention, it’s gratifying. That’s a large reason why people do it. Status, reputation.
Of community participation: It’s easier to find a community, easier to participate, easier to build up a reputation simply by participating more than everyone else. But it’s also simple to drop away: people don’t have the social expectations of formality and politeness, or giving reasons why you’re suddenly never on the net, that are expected in the real world. It’s still a community endeavor, but the individual is even more fully in control of how much, when, and why they participate. A sense of entitlement to privacy, ironically.
