Why do online communities organise themselves?
Firstly, in the networked environment individuals have limited ability to change certain areas such as technoloculture frameworks and are generally bombarded with information overload. Conversely, in online communities, people are able to create their own technocultures whilst easily managing and evaluating information and gaining strength in numbers (Bruns, 'Online Communitites', 2007). As explained by Bruns in the week 6 'Online Communities' podcast, the benefits of online communities include: new forms of personal and community identity, community interests, new forms of collaboration and social organisation, active user participation as content creators, ability to operate in fields of interest neglected by mainstream media, business, politics, research etc., and the ability to build cooperative networks with other communities. As Ridings and Gefen (2004) explain, 'social psychology has found that people join groups in general for both feelings of affiliation and belonging as well as for information and aid in goal achievement'.
How do online communitites organise themselves?
When looking at online communities it is important to analyse the impact of community power. Evidently, the upserge of online communities has escalated in an transferral from offline to online powers in relation to factors such as cultural institutions, media practices, knowledge management, political movements and even economic factors (Bruns, 'Online Communities, 2007). Amy Kim (2000) proposed the following memebership life cycle for online communities, she explains that members of virtual communities begin their life in a community as a visitor or lurker (in technical terms). After breaking spending some time in the community people become novices and beging to participate in the community life. After some contributions for a sustained period these contributors become regulars and if they break through another level barrier they are seen as leaders and after contributing for some time these people become elders. A similar model can be found in the works of Lave and Wenger, who illustrate a cycle of how users become incorporated into virtual communities using the principles of legitimate peripheral participation. They suggest five types of trajectories amongst a learning community:
Peripheral (i.e. Lurker) – An outside, unstructured participation
Inbound (i.e. Novice) – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation
Insider (i.e. Regular) – Full committed community participant
Boundary (i.e. Leader) – A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions
Outbound (i.e. Elder) – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks.
What does it require?
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