Like its predecessor, the best-selling CyberSociety, published in 1994, Cybersociety 2.0 is rooted in criticism and analysis of computer-mediated technologies to assist readers in becoming critically aware of the hype and hopes pinned on computer-mediated communication and of the cultures that are emerging among Internet users. Both books are products of a particular moment in time, and serve as snapshots of the concerns and issues that surround the burgeoning new technologies of communication. After a brief introduction to the history of computer-mediated communication, each essay in this volume highlights specific cyber societies and how computer-mediated communication affects the notion of self and its relation to community. Contributors probe issues of community, standards of conduct, communication, means of fixing identity, knowledge, information, and the exercise of power in social relations.

The Emergence of On-Line Community

The Emergence of On-Line Community

The emergence of on-line community
Nancy K.Baym

Early scholarship on computer-mediated communication (CMC) was oriented toward organizational uses of computing. The primary questions asked were how CMC could enhance work processes such as group decision making. Conducted primarily in organizations and laboratories, this research generally argued that computers are inherently inhospitable to social relationships. Scholarship has finally caught up with what many users of CMC had long known: Social relationships thrive on-line and have since the beginning of interactive computing. For many observers and participants the word “community” seemed appropriate for the new social realms emerging through this on-line interaction, capturing a sense of interpersonal connection as well as internal organization. Its use has turned out to be more loaded than some ...

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