I respectfully beg to differ on this distinction made between online an offline community formation. Just because someone is a physical neighbour in no way guarantees that one is a member of that neighbourhood community. I myself have lived in neighbourhoods where I was a very active community member in a political context. I have lived in others where I didn't even know the names of my neighbours. Similarly in cyberspace, creating a mailing list, bulletin board or Facebok grouping is not synonymous with creating a community. To paraphrase David Buckingham writing about media audiences, being a community member is not something you are but something you do. This suggests a discursive understanding of community. I see both online and offline communities as being defined and produced by the practices of those who participate in them. Of course I recognize that the lack of physical presence has effects, both positive and negative. The issue of "lurking" for example, and even the negative connotation of that term, suggests that one must actively participate to be viewed as a legitimate community member (I think this was discussed on this list some time back). Very interesting discussion, folks! I don't want to give the impression of jumping in and then "disappearing" but I'm off on vacation tomorrow and don't be accessing this account for 10 days or so. Best Rhiannon Alecea Standlee wrote:
Another issue that we might consider, is how we define membership. When we talk about online communitites maybe we need to address how someone is or is not defined as a community member. After all in an offline community, often geographic occupation is the primary indicator if someone is a neighbor or community member. Online the definitions of community are more complex. The degree of interaction and active participation in community life online functions very differently. Before we can really examine the FB vs MS debate, we have to set some perameters and define some core idea.
Alecea