What is a Cyberculture / Virtual Community?
| "Virtual communities emerged from a surprising intersection of human
needs and technology. When the ubiquity of the telecommunications
network is combined with the information-structuring and storing capabilities
of compuers, a new communication medium becomes possible. Virtual
community is a term commonly used to described various forms of computer-mediated
communication, particularly long-term, textually mediated conversations
among large groups. It is a group of people who may or may not meet
one another face-to-face, and who exchange words and ideas through the
mediation of computer networks and bulletin boards. The range of
activities is immense. People chat. They argue. They
exchange property, ideas and gossip. the plan, make friends, even
fall in love. They do everything people do when they meet face-to-face,
but by using computers, they do it separated in space and time. Electronic
interactions in which people don't know each other make new kinds of communities
possible.
The improved communication of virtual interaction allows people to seek out more easily those who espouse similar beliefs than can be done in a physical worls. For example, Net newsgroups and electronic bulletin boards allow people to share ideas and knowledge on a particular subject...." from: "The Virtual Driving Forces in the Virtual Society," by Magid Igbaria, in Communications of the ACM , Dec 99,Vol 42, No. 12. The ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery, a journal
for Computing professionals.
|
Virginia Montecino | montecin@gmu.edu | Education and Technology Resources