online community
Misc. Thoughts #1
(From time to time, I’ll have a thought occur to me that is too much to scribble onto a piece of paper or enter as a note in my phone. Most often these thoughts have a short lifetime, approximately as long as it takes me to become distracted by television, games, or food. In an attempt to economize on my limited brain power, I will be tossing these thoughts up here as a discussion point or bit of commentary. The following struck me while sitting in on a PhD proposal defense today.)
When discussing online communities, many times researchers point out that there is no need for physical or previously-existing community interactions between members. While in a pure sense of the term ‘virtual’, I can see this being true, what I wonder is how these existing physical or “real world” relationships affect the virtual spaces. What I am imagining are RL friends who join forum communities together or play MMO games with each other primarily because of their previously existant relationship. Is this something that virtual spaces need? Does it enhance the development of a virtual community by providing an anchor of sociability that need not be formed in an environment that, according to numerous researchers of virtual spaces, has a good deal of trouble letting people interact in a deep and natural way?