(First) Proposal of our Group Project Plan

The following (so far) also appears on our group wiki page

Virtual Communities

In order to look at virtual communities in more depth it first necessitates a definition of the term ‘community’:
What is a community, how do we define a community? What constitutes a virtual community as opposed to a community in real life? How might a virtual community be similar to or different from a community as we experience it in the real world?
Resources we think might be useful in considering the above:
Raymond Williams’ definition of the term ‘community’ in his Keywords (1976), dictionary definitions of ‘community’
Howard Rheingold’s work on virtual communities available here

From the above, the question arises as to whether virtual communities might have changed people's perception of the local-global nexus. We will aim to discuss this relationship between the local and the global in terms of cyberspace. This will require a definition of cyberspace, as well as take into account how cyberspace might have redrawn national boundaries and the consequences this might have.

At last we will explore the possible motivations (such as narcissism, confirmation, etc) of people joining virtual communities (such as Queeruption, MySpace, Facebook, etc). Whilst this will give an account of how virtual communities are often used to market oneself or to gain confirmation, we will also consider Rheingold’s concept of a ‘gift economy’. This will also enable us to assess the pros and cons of virtual communities (possibly by using two to four different virtual communities as case studies).

Conclusion: We will evaluate all of the above and hopefully come to a concise conclusion of how the emergence of virtual communities might have impacted upon our perception of the term community.