Are Virtual Communities True Communities? Examining the Environments and Elements of Community

Abstract

Critiques of modern societies often cite the loss of community as a result of weak connections with local places and changing modes of social interactions. We will argue that both the loss of community and attempts to regain community can be understood as a series of debates progressing from one environment to another. Specifically, community was seen as being lost from its original environment, the local place, typically a village or a residential neighborhood. Then came the claim that community could be regained in the environment of shared space, typically voluntary associations or work groups. The most recent candidate for regaining community is the digital environment of cyberspace. Using existing research, we seek to determine if virtual communities are indeed true communities. Can the virtual community provide two of the core elements-common ties and social interactionwithout identification with place? We explore each of these environments as we search for community and the qualities necessary to establish community, finding that virtual communities are spatially liberated, socially ramified, topically fused, and psychologically detached, with a limited liability. In this sense, if we understand community to include the close, emotional, holistic ties of Gemeinschaft, then the virtual community is not true community. That does not necessarily imply, however, that Internet relationships are the antithesis of true community relationships. The Internet may either reduce community, reinforce community, or provide a weak replacement.Critiques of modern societies often include the loss of community, due to weak connections with local places and changing modes of social interactions. The idea that Western societies lose community as they modernize has been an ongoing theme in sociology since Tönnies's Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Tönnies, Simmel, Wirth, and to a lesser degree, Durkheim, Marx, and Weber all concluded that, on balance, the quantity and quality of community is reduced when a society becomes more urban, more industrial, more Gesellschaft-like.

Strangers and Friends: Collaborative Play in World of Warcraft

“…Driskell and Lyon [7] observed that it seems we never cease to pine for the tightknit communities putatively found in the small villages of Europe in the nineteenth century. Such villages were the inspiration for Tönnies's concept of Gemeinschaft-the intimate, close relations of a group of people who know one another well and share history and tradition [29].…”

“…Such villages were the inspiration for Tönnies's concept of Gemeinschaft-the intimate, close relations of a group of people who know one another well and share history and tradition [29]. But MMOGs provide an occasion to reflect on whether such communities should be the gold standard [7]. While Gemeinschaft-style social groups provide deep, supportive bonds, such bonds can be constraining as well as fulfilling.…”

“…While arguments about social life on the Internet have suggested that it may lead to social isolation [15,20,23], or, at best, weak social ties [7], it is common for WoW players to play with offline friends and family. Playing together includes grouping, sharing items, chatting, and exploring.…”

“…While the term "community" has been used in myriad ways [14], we adopt Driskell and Lyon's formulation that a community involves "common ties" and "social interactions" [7]. Common ties include a shared interest, bonds, commitment, a set of shared values, a culture, history, and shared identity [7].…”

“…While the term "community" has been used in myriad ways [14], we adopt Driskell and Lyon's formulation that a community involves "common ties" and "social interactions" [7]. Common ties include a shared interest, bonds, commitment, a set of shared values, a culture, history, and shared identity [7]. Since World of Warcraft was only released in November 2004, guild histories may be rather short, but guilds, which clearly have the other elements of common ties, as well as rich social interactions, appear to us to be communities.…”