Are virtual communities less real?

[Anarch]

I have to write an essay on this question for my sociology class at university. Any and all who wish to contribute ideas via this thread are more than welcome to do so.

My ideas so far (anyone with a vague familiarity will recognise the Carl Schmitt influence).

A) define community. A community as a group of people with common traditions and historically generated identity, not necessarily with a claim to territory (e.g. gypsies) but it helps (Jews, on the other hand) - whether that claim is actualised or not (Jews prior to Israel, Jews post-1948). Because a community has to have an in-group and an out-group, the highest possibility of contrast between the ingroup and the outgroup is war. This is manifested in two ways: conventional war (e.g. organised armies under the control of the State, which defines the laws which provide for a cohesive group) and unconventional war (guerilla war). It doesn't matter whether this potential is has been made actual or not, rather whether the potential exists.

B) Translating this into the virtual world. By virtual I effectively mean the internet. Historically generated communities are formed by Power (yes, I'm invoking The Great Foucault™) - relations between various influential people who have some claim to fame, power and the rest by means of some legitimising 'Totem' (e.g. knowledge, being part of a certain organisation (e.g. computer game designer, and so on).

C) Internet 'war'. The concept of cyberspace and drawing analogies to real space - that a community has its claim to a name, and a certain space (e.g. The Phora, http://thephora.net) which it holds to be important. The will not to have it violated, vandalised, destroyed. The concept of war in cyberspace (hack attacks, mass migration across cyberspace, etc.). The importance of cyber-authority (e.g. Administrators) in having the 'right' to establish the community and re-form it in case of collapse from attacks.

D) Community dynamics, parallels in the real world. Now, to invoke Deleuze - aborescent (i.e. 'tree-like') vs Rhizomatic (mesh, weed-like). Concretised community, when the claim to space is made real, follows an aborescent structure - authority creates the structure of the community, participants form the matter that makes it real. With the collapse of authority, the community takes on a Rhizomatic form - e.g. the collapse of the Phora which resulted in The Phora in Exile which nonetheless did not have the same legitimacy as The Phora proper, the mass migrations, the network needed to reconcentrate the community on a new space of territory.

I'd like some ideas/examples to help me flesh out the above. Any extra stuff would be more than welcome. It's due on Monday (right now it's Thursday). After I get my marks back I'll post the essay here in case anyone's interested in it.

[Ahknaton]

Some questions to address:

What stake does the individual have in the community? What motivates them to defend its reputation? How much emotional investment do they have in their membership of the virtual community? How does the status of the virtual community to which they are a member reflect their status as an individual and vice versa?

What in group/out group dynamics are at play in virtual communities? What are the filters/barriers to membership? How are they enforced? What stake do the individuals already in the community have in this filtering process?

What are the "social contracts" implicit in the relationship between the individual and the virtual community to which he/she is a member? What do they contribute to the community and what do they get in return?

To what extent can an individual misrepresent their real-world identity online? Does this make their membership of a virtual community counterfeit or less "real"?

I'd also look at MMORPGs as well as forums. That way you can look at the economic aspects of it (e.g. game items being traded on eBay for real money). Perhaps include some news stories as references (e.g. the guy in China who was killed over a dispute involving a virtual game item, the "virtual funeral" for a WoW player who had died in reallife gatecrashed by a rival clan etc etc).

One last thing: group-specific idioms and "in-group" slang e.g. phorafeeb, TGM, behave jewrself etc.

Hope this helps.

[Keystone]

Virtual communities aren't real. They are a substitute for what should be real interaction between people. There isn't even the supposed miracle of world-wide communication, because we're all still stuck in our own patches, which don't cross electronic lines.

that's a short paper. sorry.

[Ahknaton]

Virtual communities may be "less real" than those in real-life in some ways, but on the other hand, I've had quite a lot more interaction with some people on here than my next-door neighbours. I've been living in the same house for 2 years and talked to them precisely once.

Other real-life "communities" such as those that revolve around work, sport or circles of friends are of course more real than online interactions, but "less real" doesn't mean "not real".

[Julian Curtis Lee]

Yeah, ain't it amazing how disconnected we actually are now in our own towns. (Ain't technology wonderful. :cool:) We use it to screw things up, then we use it to try to fix it.

[Dan Dare]

I believe it's the case the more diverse physical communities become the more people will retreat into virtual communities.

Virtual communities lower the transaction costs of developing interpersonal relationships since it is easy and relatively painless to truncate unproductive interactions without unnecessary hurt to either party's feelings.

On the other hand if, for example, you are the only European-American family in your cul-de-sac it doesn't take more than a couple of attempts to strike up a rapport with your Afghani or Cambodian neighbors to bring home the realisation that (a) it is tremendously hard work with limited prospects of success, and (b) it might be time to contemplate a move.

[Jonathan]

Following on from what's already been said, you could argue that virtual communities take the place of "real life" communities as social capital is eroded in the post-industrial society etc.

Personally, I don't regard "the Phora community" to be as real as my "real life" community, but it all depends on the definition of community.

[Geist]

‘Among the most intriguing aspects of the Internet are the possibilities it presents for the development, growth and maintenance of distance-transcending relationships.’ (Smith 87)

Personally you seem to have covered the basic criteria for the potentiality of the internet facilitating community.

You could discuss the use of the internet in challenging hegemonic power structures if youre already evoking po-mo infidels such as Delueze and Foucault.

Its an interesting idea for an essay all the same, will you be using the Phora as an example :rofl:

[Anarch]

I would, if I hadn't've made this post. Now it appears I'd be tracked by the thought police at my university if I let them know I'm actually Deus Ex Machina, and well... yeah. The teacher for the class happens to be a feminist of what appears to be the third wave variety.

[Geist]

I would, if I hadn't've made this post. Now it appears I'd be tracked by the thought police at my university if I let them know I'm actually Deus Ex Machina, and well... yeah. The teacher for the class happens to be a feminist of what appears to be the third wave variety.

Probably, one never knows, although I mentioned the Phora in an essay on Holocaust Denial :rofl:

I still find it hilarious you are studying sociology though. :D

[Ravenheart]

After I get my marks back I'll post the essay here in case anyone's interested in it.

I'd like that. :)

[Sinclair]

Well, there's a reason people say "IRL"... Still, I'd much rather communicate with people I don't really know, than with idiots my age who I don't really know either because spending time around them is tiresome.

[Anarch]

Probably, one never knows, although I mentioned the Phora in an essay on Holocaust Denial :rofl:

LOL. I haven't found a reason, yet.

I still find it hilarious you are studying sociology though. :D

She also 'taught' me political ideologies last semester. More like I taught the class. I corrected her on Marx about fifteen times, and then actually got the class to understand what Max Stirner was saying... it was depressing. But arguing with her in class - and proving her wrong in front of the entire class - was awesome. Now my friend Simon (who is a first year science student, now enrolled in a second year sociology subject thanks to moi) and I do the same thing in sociology. She hates me even more. But it's fun. She's got her masters degree and I'm interrupting her and explaining what Foucault's idea of Power is. LOL.

[Geist]

L
She also 'taught' me political ideologies last semester. More like I taught the class. I corrected her on Marx about fifteen times, and then actually got the class to understand what Max Stirner was saying... it was depressing. But arguing with her in class - and proving her wrong in front of the entire class - was awesome. Now my friend Simon (who is a first year science student, now enrolled in a second year sociology subject thanks to moi) and I do the same thing in sociology. She hates me even more. But it's fun. She's got her masters degree and I'm interrupting her and explaining what Foucault's idea of Power is. LOL.

I had a similar situation in classes dealing with feminism or post colonialism; people adhere to these things religiously despite not understanding where they came from, so any time Derrida, Foucault or anybody else is mentioned I liked to divert the topic and show what terrible anti-humanists the were by proxy :rofl:

On a side note I cant believe she teaches and only does a Masters, hell Im about 5 months away from having one and the Id need an MLitt or whatever before I had the chance to teach over here!

[Micaelis]

You guys disgust good taste. :p j/k m8s

[Ahmadinebobina]

I had a similar situation in classes dealing with feminism or post colonialism; people adhere to these things religiously despite not understanding where they came from, so any time Derrida, Foucault or anybody else is mentioned I liked to divert the topic and show what terrible anti-humanists the were by proxy :rofl:

On a side note I cant believe she teaches and only does a Masters, hell Im about 5 months away from having one and the Id need an MLitt or whatever before I had the chance to teach over here!


that's because of the way you would teach people.
Geisttalk it would be.
about negros and the like.

[Daniel Shays]

http://thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5781

Internet users now have a "cyber-911" tool they can use to report hate-mongering websites.

The Canadian Jewish Congress has launched a new feature on its website, http://www.cjc.ca (http://www.cjc.ca/), to allow people to make it easier to alert the appropriate authorities when they spot racism on the Internet.

http://thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5760

On a positive note, the survey found a majority of Americans favors measures that would support and teach tolerance and support diverse student bodies:


• 50% agree to stopping racist and anti-Semitic groups from using the Internet.

[Geist]

You guys disgust good taste. :p j/k m8s

Ha, just because youre every theory orientated departments wet dream! :D

By the way, what do you study, Im guessing English (with a heavily theory, comparitive lit. leaning department) and philosophy with a continental leaning department?

Either way you have got a lot of the post structuralist stuff down that irks a lot of my friends.

[Geist]

that's because of the way you would teach people.
Geisttalk it would be.
about negros and the like.

Im confused, I would teach nothing but poetry in a Harold Bloom stylely. :rofl:

[Micaelis]

...what do you study, Im guessing English (with a heavily theory, comparitive lit. leaning department) and philosophy with a continental leaning department?...

I study mostly philosophy on my own time, though I have taken courses in the history of philosophy (Plato through AJ Ayer), existentialism and applied logic. My current major is philosophy, though I am no longer pursuing it after this semester. I'm going to start volunteering at group homes for children waiting to be placed in foster care and/or adopted. From there maybe I will land something steady in child care services. Much more practical and fulfiling than being a lawyer or professor, though I'd like to continue reading and writing. :) You're aiming at becoming a lawyer?

[Geist]

I study mostly philosophy on my own time, though I have taken courses in the history of philosophy (Plato through AJ Ayer), existentialism and applied logic. My current major is philosophy, though I am no longer pursuing it after this semester. I'm going to start volunteering at group homes for children waiting to be placed in foster care and/or adopted. From there maybe I will land something steady in child care services. Much more practical and fulfiling than being a lawyer or professor, though I'd like to continue reading and writing. :) You're aiming at becoming a lawyer?

I dropped Philosophy and am currently doing a Masters in English Literature. The aim is English Lit. lecturer but as its a difficult game I am in the process of looking at alternative jobs, although what they are is as yet a mish mash of ideas.

[Anarch]

You could discuss the use of the internet in challenging hegemonic power structures if youre already evoking po-mo infidels such as Delueze and Foucault.

Actually, I'm writing the essay now. I had no idea Deleuze could be this useful. His concepts (arborescent vs rhizomatic, micropolitics, and so on) are pretty damn helpful in assisting me to spew out assorted rambling bullshit to fill in words. w00t. And yes, I think I will waffle on about hegemonic power and stuff. Al-Jazeera and all the rest.

[Anarch]

And here is the essay...


Are virtual communities real?

The modern world has many similarities with civilizations of old – advanced highways, world-spanning commerce, shifting populations of labour, intercontinental political structures. However one characteristic stands out which has no comparison in history: the internet. A world-spanning, decentralised network of communication and trade powered by microprocessors and telephone cabling, it has freed information from censorship and enabled millions from around the world to communicate at a speed and volume beyond the control of any individual and organisation. It has enabled people to form relationships and retrieve information which otherwise may not have been at their disposal. The internet is a world in which class, ethnicity and race are of no impediment to anyone who wishes to make his or her views heard, or to anyone who wishes to hear the views of others.

This world, which parallels, and ultimately has roots in our own concrete world of human action (for the internet is, at bottom, only people), has the power to generate communities in which time and space are compressed, and people can be brought together from around the world of their own will. On the internet, this virtual world, communities are formed of people who have likeminded ideals and interests – from books to music to pornography to trade to politics and religion. Some have claimed virtual communities and the individual ties that compose them are simply substitutes for ‘real communities’ – that there is a fundamental, qualitative difference between the real world in which one shakes hands, wages war, makes love, wins victories and feels defeat. A question which is rising in the minds of millions who are connected to this great, weed-like mesh of relationships remains: are virtual communities less real than the world outside connection, which I will refer to as sensual communities?

It is important first to define what exactly a community is. The first immediately recognisable and similar form of community of which the West has written record is that of the city state. Comprised of a relatively small population, city states had leaders, laws, armies, defined borders and trade routes with other like communities. They were the first ‘rooted’, territorialised communities: prior to city states it is fair to say that all which existed was simply nomadic tribes wandering on vast plains, bearing strange similarity to herds of cattle or packs of wolves. Ironically, this image of nomads wandering across space bears much similarity to the functioning of the internet.

The Greek city state, the polis (which I shall use as reference because of Aristotle and Plato’s work on the political theory of the polis ), was a territorialised community structured by laws, with a definable ‘in-group’, and an ‘out-group’ which was recognised as Other. The community was built on (and, indeed, all that can be spoken of as community) a group of individuals who shared common traditions, languages and history.

The turn to fixed, territory and structured orientated forms of community is what most people think of when the word ‘community’ is mentioned. However, this is not necessary – there have been (and remain) communities without claims to territory (e.g. the Gypsy communities in Europe), communities which claim territory and do not possess it (for example, the Kurds in the middle east, the Jews prior to 1948), and communities which possess territory (every community with an organised state-form).

It is not, then, a necessity for the existence – though perhaps little else but existence can be achieved – of a community to possess territory. What is undeniably a necessity for any community to exist is an identity. This identity, initially, is – as in the sensual world – formed from common interests. Aristotle, in his Politics, postulated that communities are formed from economic necessity – because while a community can be economically self-sufficient, an individual is not. While this is true in the sensual world, in the realm of the virtual, the necessities of food, water and shelter are not direct requirements for existence (I am quite willing to accept that the virtual world is a derivative of the sensual world, and hence requirements for existence in the sensual world are prerequisites for existence in the virtual world). This has no impact on the truth that people do, quite often, trade items on the internet as they would in real life (see, for example, Amazon.com and Ebay.com, in which books, CDs, and other items are traded for real money and then shipped around the world to their buyers).

The virtual world, in contrast to the sensual world, is voluntary. One is born into a community, raised according to its standards, educated in its traditions, nursed by parents into a viable, non-parasitic human being, and then one couples up and spawns its fair share of a new generation and so the cycle repeats. One is not born into a virtual community, on the other hand. Insofar as one is not barred by stringent entry requirements (such as, for example, being a skilled player in a certain online game, or possessing certain knowledge on which the community is orientated), one can join any community he or she wishes.

One can also falsify his or her identity. Indeed, this is possible with far more ease than it is in the sensual world: in the sensual world, we have faces which we can change only at the cost of several thousand dollars in plastic surgery, more money in acquiring false (or officially and legally modified) government documents such as a new name, a fresh place of residence, and so on. It is relatively simple to mask one’s IP address with a proxy on the internet, acquire a new name by which one is known, a new email address, and so on. It could indeed be argued that these possibilities make the virtual world, and communities that exist in that world, less real than ones we have in the sensual world. However, the fact remains that these possibilities (or their equivalents, in any case) are possible – and that for one so inclined, it is entirely possible to escape from under the radar, so to speak, and live under a different name altogether, living at a place away from one’s legal residence, working cash-in-hand jobs, and so on.

Which is actually irrelevant in the light of David Chalmer’s critique of the ‘brain in the jar’ hypothesis – that the world in which one operates is real for all intents and purposes, especially given the problem Kant raised, about the possibility of knowing a thing-in-itself, rather than merely the appearance. The frustration of a man who confesses to be a man on the internet, who seeks to meet an interesting personality he’s met on the internet, but then turns out to be someone utterly unexpected (and possibly undesirable, by his standards) does not do away with the fact that the virtual world and the sensual world are not the same thing.

If the online world is not a kind of Lamarkian hereditary community (as all sensual communities are), and virtual communities are not formed of economic necessity, how and why do virtual communities exist? As mentioned before, virtual communities are voluntary communities. They are formed by the coalescing interests of various people on the internet. Yet like the Puritans who set foot in North America and declared their own independent community, a rallying point for a community of a common interest/s is undoubtedly necessary if we are to speak of communities proper, and not merely people communicating to each other via email or other messenger programs – else the very idea of community would have given way to a world-wide mesh of intercommunication by men of letters and so on millennia ago. The establishment of a rallying point means two things – and here there is a resemblance to European imperialism vis-à-vis the ‘New World’ – and both go hand in hand. Territory needs to be claimed, and a banner needs to be raised identifying for what purpose the territory is to be carved out. In the world of electric cables and keyboards, territory means having a point of gathering (which varies depending on the community). It can be a Usenet group, a web forum (also known as Bulletin Board System, aka BBS), a mailing list or a newsgroup.

And here, as with the legends of Rome being established out of exiles from other nations, for any community to grow it needs to let the rest of the world know of its existence. And so migrants from other parts of (virtual) space come to join, and rules are established for the conduct of the community. These rules, which again, bear similarity to political communities in the sensual world, generally have enforcers and codified punishments, with the minimal punishment as being censured, the most extreme being permanently exiled.

As in the ancient city-states, communities can be structured in two various ways. I shall use two basic terms, from Gilles Deleuze’s work in A Thousand Plateaus which I believe to be especially applicable. The first concept, the rhizomatic structure, refers to the mode of functioning of what it is named after: weeds. Weeds have no center points, they are meshes, connected at the roots, which spring up. They cannot, unlike arborescent structures (i.e. tree-like) structures, be killed with one swoop at the trunk. The arborescent structure, in contrast, has a unity of order, division of labour, a united form. Most modern communities are arborescent structures, in which in-group and out-group distinctions are quite easy to form, for a political authority with the determination to do so.

Rhizomatic communities tend to be unstable and temporary at best – given many rhizomatic communities are such due to internet wars in which the rallying point is destroyed - and tend not to last long because sooner or later (generally sooner) an authority will establish a rallying point and the community will revert to an arborescent form. It is entirely possible, however, a rallying point established by a member of the community may not have the same ‘effect’ as a rallying point established by another. Prestige and authority on the internet are hardly equally distributed, though not necessarily as formalised, as they are in the sensual world.

The nature by which authority is acquired obviously varies from community to community depending on the purpose for which that community was formed. Authority can be derived from knowledge (e.g., on a motor bike forum, authority may go hand in hand with the knowledge of being a motorcycle mechanic to make one respected in the eyes of others), real world authority (for example, perhaps on a forum of Christians, a theologian of the Catholic Church might have more authority than a relatively new member), one’s time in being part of a community (a person who is a persistent contributor to the community for several years could be expected to have more authority than someone who joined yesterday).

There being two kinds of power, soft and hard power (I define soft as respect in the eyes of others, hard power being the ability to enforce rules within a community by various measures, including censuring an unruly member, or exile), hierarchies of sorts generally develop within communities. In the event that a rallying point collapses (if an owner does not pay for ownership of the territory, for example), a member of that community who may have more soft power than the original owner may set up a successor rallying point, and the community may then redevelop there. Indeed, the concept of soft power is integral to the functioning of a rhizomatic community, precisely because there is no center point from which an arborescent authority may declare itself and enable the structuring of codified relations. Over time, soft power tends to translate into hard power – and this tendency operates, over time (as it does in political communities) to make the community more effective at being what it is – a network of individuals in agreement as to the value of something, whether that be knowledge, politics, trade, religion, whatever.

The alternative, in which hard power represses and does not absorb soft power, overwhelmingly tends to result in splits in communities, exiles, and has the same kind of effect as the division of Western Christendom into the Catholic world and the Protestant world did.

And given the practically unlimited space on the internet (as opposed to the limited territory and resources of the sensual world) there is nothing to stop a group of exiles from forming together and establishing another community. Indeed, this phenomenon is hardly rare. The split generally function the same as in political parties - divisions can occur where one section perceives that the authority is violating the original purpose of the community, or where groups of individuals disagree as to where the community should ‘go’ next.

So – are virtual communities less real than sensual, or real, communities? I believe the question to be rigged. The standard of judgement implicitly lies on the side of sensual communities. Within online communities, one is capable of making friends, falling in love, developing hatred, learning, buying and selling goods – even faking one’s identity. One is capable of all these things in the ‘real’ world. I believe that the virtual world of cables, electrical pulses, microprocessors and telephone lines is just as real as the one we face in our day to day lives, when we sleep in our beds, eat our meals, go to work. It is real, yes – but in a different sense than the world which generates the standard by which we presume to judge the virtual world. The virtual world is indeed, ‘just people’. The virtual world is an extension of our own, it is rooted in this world, and it is just as real as it.

[Spitfire]

I think virtual societies are more real. Primarily because they are anonymous. There's just the thoughts in the user's mind and the keyboard and connection.

Nothing exists to stifle the flow of ideas and opinions. No embarassment for speaking out of turn, no need for acceptance, no peer pressure or group-think. And especially no political correctness as a brake on talking of the forbidden subjects. Just a constant flow of words and information. Pick and choose at your leisure.

One can still put one's cyberfoot in one's cybermouth, but who cares? Anonymity has it's benefits. I'll probably never meet a single person on any of these forums. For the remainder of my life. I can't be judged on anything but my words. In real life words indict you, and you are judged on appearance and "attitude". That's the power of free speech distilled to it's essence. There is some degree of futility and meaninglessness to Internet culture, but that's life. At least we can collect rep points. That's something.

I believe truth can be found on this thing called the Internet. Truth about life, the universe, and everything. A worthy goal. Though not lucrative.