NEW ONLINE COMMUNITY FORMATIONS

New Online Alternative Community Formation:

With the Internet, early online forums demonstrated the promise of a great diversity of “virtual communities” organized around common interests (Rheingold 1993). A fundamental problematic is if Internet-based communities exist solely as “virtual” moments in cyberspace or do constellations of digital information have an enduring material basis for “reality.” Castells (2001) characterizes online interactions as less a space of communities (conceived as based on primary relations) and primarily extending already existing modes of relations or interests of individuals.  Wellman (2001), while agreeing with Castells on the increase in individualism in industrial societies, has extensively studied the nature of online communities and has argued that such communities, as networks of interpersonal ties are indeed “real” in terms of forming durable relations that provide a number of social rewards including sociability, identity and support networks.

The following are the three types of online community formation: a) Solidarity association, b) new forms of mutuality, and c) individualistic networking.

1. Solidarity association: This is the extension of online and into new movement networks of pre-existing collective movement and social identities and strategies that value solidarity such as labor and more group focused identity movement formations such as civil rights and also more traditional religious and national identities online. Human beings have lived in groups and communities since the beginning of time. Most human communities till now have generally been based on physical proximity, common collective identities and shared goals and values. With the rise of the city, the growing division of labor and individualism, social ties became more attenuated—while people gradually, generally became freer and liberated from domination. With the rise of print and postal services social ties and relationships became mediated.
   
   
2. New Forms of Mutuality: Online alternative community formation as an end in itself is a space for the transformation of society, such as in the still surviving and expanding in spaces from Usenet spheres and realms of MUD playing to new online religions and radical political forums. New online communities are the cutting edge of the net as mediator of collective subjectivity—the net as a space of play and ludic involvement which in alternative moments would transform hyper-tech consumerism of videogames into more humane forms of relating. The net is also a site of resistance to mainstream culture in many forms; anti-modern, future utopian, etc., which serve as a recruiting ground for activists and the play or critiques of modernity. In terms of democratic potential, of great interest is the creation of collectivities based on shared values and projects, which resist in form and process the rationalized of life world and objectification of social relations.
     
3. Individualistic Networking: The pursuit of self-interests by individuals in many networks such as social movements. When used in an interactive manner, television and digital communications may be conceptualized, in theory and practice, as "autonomous media" (Dyer-Witheford 1999). That is, social actors use the Internet, and other technologies not only for the needs and intentions propagated by commercial marketing or social movement campaigns, but also to explore their interests.

By:  ULAYA SIJALI A.

BAPRM 42681