Suchergebnisse

Saaed Valadbaygi, a young Iranian activist in exile, describes the impact of Web 2.0 on his generation — both inside and outside the country

Online, communities of people aggregate, sharing common interests, ideas, and feelings over the Internet. In this article we focus on the concept of so-called virtual communities (VCs) from a theoretical and empirical perspective. We want to provide a definition from desk research which can be useful on the theoretical and the empirical level. Moreover, we compare it with the definition that emerges from the interviews, which is typical from the qualitative approach perspective. Research questions (RQs) are: (1) How can a VC be defined? and (2) How is a VC defined by its users? We used Porter's typology of VCs to select four case studies and conducted 49 in-depth interviews with their members. Our study points to the applicability and usefulness of Porter's typology of virtual communities and suggests a new approach for defining the concept VC.

The Internet's rapid development has created a new space, namely digital space, in people's life. This digital space, which is created by the advancement in information and communication technology, provides an alternative for the community to get an advantage. The community can engage in a variety of activities. One of them is to communicate. Due to the presence of digital space, a new communication culture by using Internet has emerged. The purpose of this research is to discover how Internet speech (Netspeak) is used in conversation in the Kaskus online community. Virtual ethnography was used as a research method. This study attempted to find out how culture, interactions, and structures shape the cybersocial reality in the Kaskus forum. This study describes various Internet languages that users use to express and communicate what they have in mind. The slang language is used by the Kaskusers to: (1) familiarize themselves with others, (2) express themselves, (3) inform about something, (4) give their regret, (5) insinuate, and (6) to buy and sell. In comparison, emoticons are used as: (1) the sign of friendship, (2) the sign of expressing emotions, (3) the sign of satire, and (4) the sign of telling something.

This study examines the kinds of behaviors that constitute virtual community citizenship behaviors (VCCB) and tests three factors that may influence community members' willingness to engage in VCCB. More specifically, the authors propose a multi-dimensional VCCB construct (altruism, civic virtue, consciousness, courtesy, and sportsmanship) and three antecedents of VCCB (affective commitment, structural embeddedness and membership tenure). Four dimensions including altruism, civic virtue, courtesy and loyalty emerged as a result of behavioral examples collection from SMEs using critical incident technique and a VCCB survey with 19 Likert type items reflecting the behavioral examples within each dimension was created. Data was collected from an online discussion forum (The Grad Cafe) to address the research questions of this study. Results indicate that affective commitment was a significant predictor of the virtual community citizenship behaviors. A research agenda for studying VCCB is presented.

Howard Rheingold tours the "virtual community" of online networking. Howard Rheingold has been called the First Citizen of the Internet. In this book he tours the "virtual community" of online networking. He describes a community that is as real and as much a mixed bag as any physical community -- one where people talk, argue, seek information, organize politically, fall in love, and dupe others. At the same time that he tells moving stories about people who have received online emotional support during devastating illnesses, he acknowledges a darker side to people's behavior in cyberspace. Indeed, contends Rheingold, people relate to each other online much the same as they do in physical communities. Originally published in 1993, The Virtual Community is more timely than ever. This edition contains a new chapter, in which the author revisits his ideas about online social communication now that so much more of the world's population is wired. It also contains an extended bibliography.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only resulted in millions of deaths worldwide but also ravaged the mental health of countless other individuals by the fear and isolation it has cultivated. This phenomenological case study explores how the Sid City Social Club, a virtual fandom community born from the COVID-19 pandemic, provided a social outlet that participants claimed helped buffer against these negative mental health outcomes of the pandemic. Key to participants' experiences were the diverse identities and interests of the members of the community and the sense of support they offered their peers throughout the multiple online mediums used by the club. Special emphasis is given to the uniqueness of participating in such a virtual fandom community amidst a historical pandemic and immense global uncertainty. This study gives insight into the benefits of this type of virtual community for those experiencing social isolation for a myriad of reasons, both now and in the future.

The distressing events of 2020 challenged the United States to reimagine how our social institutions can and should respond to demands for racial justice. These demands impacted higher education and debates arose about whether the classroom is an appropriate place for teaching abolition. I address this debate by introducing a senior-level elective course, Policing in the American City, to explore how abolitionist pedagogy can guide our teaching, learning, and doing sociology alongside our students. I begin with a brief grounding in abolition and then introduce virtual community-based learning (VCBL) as an ideal medium to facilitate abolitionist pedagogy in the classroom. Next, I provide preliminary insights into the use of VCBL to illustrate how it helped students develop critical skills, mobilize their learning, and benefit community partners. Throughout, I call on instructors to consider how online education, service learning, and public sociology can align with abolitionist practices to create communities of care in our classrooms and empower students to engage abolition as praxis beyond their college years.