QotW7: Online Communities

What is community? Can community emerge from online interaction? What are the implication of the internet for traditional communities? This week, we’ll be discussing the concept of computer-mediated community.

Here’s the Question of the Week (QotW):

1. Join Twitter.com
2. Explore it, setup your profile (pseudonyms if you want privacy), add your classmates (and myself if you wish) as friends, then start some conversations going.
3. After using Twitter through the web, instant messaging or your phone (SMS), would you consider Twitter an online community? If not, what is it?
   
4. To argue your case, use key concepts from the required readings “Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?” by Fernback and Thompson (1995) and/or “Net Surfers don’t ride alone” by Wellman and Gulia (1996).
5. Make a concise argument in 500 words or more (proper written English), supported with at least three APA-style citations.
6. Start the title of your blog post as “QotW7: _____”
7. Drop a comment here with a permalink to your blog post.

Deadline
17th March, Saturday, 5pm
(Warning: Late work will not be graded)

Required
• “Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?” by Fernback and Thompson (1995)
• “Net Surfers don’t ride alone” by Wellman and Gulia (1996)

Optional Readings
• “Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites” by Danah Boyd (2006)
• “Wikipedia: Reputation management“