Pub. date: 2007 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI: 10.4135/9781412952613 | Print ISBN: 9781412905794 | Online ISBN: 9781412952613| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this encyclopedia
A virtual community is a group of individuals who are connected through the use of information technologies, such as computers, mobile telephones, and the Internet. Attributed to Howard Rheingold and his book, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier , the term is now associated with a broad range of online interactions among groups of people. Although virtual communities are now most often associated with the World Wide Web, electronic interactions began with earlier technologies, such as electronic bulletin boards, Usenet groups, chat rooms, and e-mail. Thus, virtual communities are seen to exist in cyberspace, the realm of activity created by computer networks. Members of these communities may also meet and know each other in the offline world. It is not necessary that members of a virtual community have strong links to each other, and a given person may participate in a community regularly, irregularly, or only for a ...