07/06/00
Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? By Jan Fernback & Brad Thompson
Scholars such as McLuhan (1964) have noted that the development of electronic communication technologies has essentially abrogated space and time so that we effectively live in a boundless "global village." Boorstin (1978) argues that communication technology creates ties bind nations into a new type of community, which he terms the "Republic of Technology." This community is one of shared utopian experience; he states, "with crushing inevitability, the advance of technology brings nations together and narrows the differences between the experiences of their people".
Comprised of different systems such as electronic mail, bulletin board systems, and real-time chat services, CMC (Computer mediated communication (CMC) is both an interpersonal, one-to-one medium of communication and a one-to-many or even many-to-many form of mass communication. With an estimated 25 million CMC users worldwide computer-mediated communications have the potential to affect the nature of social life in terms of both interpersonal relationships and the character of community.
Another characteristic of CMC that is sometimes overlooked is the possibility, even likelihood, that as CMC grows in popularity, there will be less need for face-to-face interaction. It is one of the supreme ironies of the utopian view of CMC that it is likely to reduce that felt sense of community that it so nostalgically seems to uphold as virtuous. In its place will be a community of interest in which members will be able to drift in and out.
We all need a sense of place, whether it be bounded territorially or in the "placeless" realm of cyberspace. However, the bounded nature of virtual community as we have defined it by topic of interest can indeed be a transnational, transcultural phenomenon that is essentially antithetical to the notion of the American collectivity as a public sphere. Perhaps the reconceptualization of community derived from our increasing participation within the realm of CMC will guide us to a clearer picture of public vs. private life within the United States.
Although CMC offers some advantages over face-to-face communication, e.g., no preconceptions of another person based on appearance, ease of coming together, and equal access to the conversation among those participating, we find the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Indeed, each of the "advantages" could be construed as a disadvantage: appearances do matter; conversation should not be based on solely efficiency; and some ideas are more useful than others.
For the reasons stated in the preceding section, the likely result of the development of virtual communities through CMC will be that a hegemonic culture will maintain its dominance. Certainly, it cannot be assumed that the current political and technical elites would willingly cede their position of dominance or knowingly sow the seeds of their own destruction.
The term virtual community is more indicative of an assemblage of people being "virtually" a community than being a real community in the nostalgic sense that advocates of CMC would seem to be endorsing. The community has a dynamic meaning.