Dr. Anita Blanchard
UNC Charlotte
Department of Psychology
July 1, 2003
Introduction
The term “virtual community” can be used to describe any group of people who interact through computer communication (e.g., email, Usenet newsgroups). However, are they truly “communities” in the traditional meaning? One way to determine if virtual communities are like traditional communities is to examine their sense of community, their feelings of belonging, attachment and identity with each other. Sense of community has been called one of the essential components of a traditional community and researchers believe that virtual communities also experience a sense of community.
The purpose of this research is to determine if active listservs and newsgroups experience a sense of community. Particularly, it examines how feelings of community in virtual groups compare to traditional face-to-face communities. In addition, it examines what leads to the feelings of community that members experience. It is hypothesized that the following factors contribute to virtual groups’ sense of community:
Participating in exchange of support in the group (i.e., asking and answering questions)
- Observing exchange of support in the group
- Knowing norms of behavior (i.e., what is appropriate behavior in the group)
- Participating in sanctioning (i.e., correcting inappropriate behavior)
- Observing sanctioning
- Creating an identity in the group
- Learning other member’s identities
- Trusting other members
- Believing that group members meet face-to-face
Additionally, it is hypothesized that members of different activity levels (e.g., lurkers vs. highly active members) have different senses of community and that different factors contribute to their sense of community. For example, active members may have a stronger relationship between participating in the exchange of support and sense of community whereas lurkers would have a stronger relationship between observing exchange of support and sense of community. Figure 1 graphically depicts the model tested in this research.