Communities in Cyberspace [Paperback]

Peter Kollock (Editor), Marc Smith (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415191408 | ISBN-13: 978-0415191401 | Publication Date: February 12, 1999 | Edition: 1

This wide-ranging introductory text looks at the virtual community of cyberspace and analyses its relationship to real communities lived out in today's societies. Issues such as race, gender, power, economics and ethics in cyberspace are grouped under four main sections and discussed by leading experts:

* identity
* social order and control
* community structure and dynamics
* collective action.

This topical new book displays how the idea of community is being challenged and rewritten by the increasing power and range of cyberspace. As new societies and relationships are formed in this virtual landscape, we now have to consider the potential consequences this may have on our own community and societies.

Clearly and concisely written with a wide range of international examples, this edited volume is an essential introduction to the sociology of the internet. It will appeal to students and professionals, and to those concerned about the changing relationships between information technology and a society which is fast becoming divided between those on-line and those not.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Editors Smith and Kollock have gathered contributors with a variety of viewpoints to examine both the "legitimacy" of community in cyberspace and to question how it operates. While the authors do conclude that communities in cyberspace are real communities, they explore the sometimes surprising ways in which cybercommunities differ from their geographically based counterparts.

There are four primary issues probed here: the question of online identity in an environment where individuals cannot be seen; the question of social order and control in what is, at least on the surface, a largely anarchic environment; the structure and dynamics of online communities; and the cybercommunity as a foundation for collective action.

There's much here to provoke long discussions both online and off, such as the argument that the screen doesn't eliminate the consideration of racial identity so much as it allows for the development of nonvisual criteria for people to judge (or misjudge) the races of others. This book was compiled to be used in the college classroom, although it's not jargon laden or difficult to read. It will appeal to anyone who is professionally or individually involved with virtual communities. --Elizabeth Lewis

Review

'I would recommend that people who intend to read just one book on the topic choose this one. This volume is exceptionally well-edited. Almost every chapter is easy to read.This volume provided me with an enjoyable, informative, and provocative reading ex --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (February 12, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415191408
• ISBN-13: 978-0415191401
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,417,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bio

Dr. Marc A. Smith

Chief Social Scientist
Connected Action Consulting Group
[e-mail]
http://www.connectedaction.net
http://delicious.com/marc_smith/

Marc Smith is a sociologist specializing in the social organization of online communities and computer mediated interaction. He founded and managed the Community Technologies Group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington and led the development of social media reporting and analysis tools for Telligent Systems. Smith leads the Connected Action consulting group and lives and works in Silicon Valley, California. Smith co-founded the Social Media Research Foundation (http://www.smrfoundation.org/), a non-profit devoted to open tools, data, and scholarship related to social media research.

Smith is the co-editor with Peter Kollock of Communities in Cyberspace (Routledge), a collection of essays exploring the ways identity; interaction and social order develop in online groups. Along with Derek Hansen and Ben Shneiderman, he is the co-author and editor of Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL: Insights from a connected world, from Morgan-Kaufmann, which is a guide to mapping connections created through computer-mediated interactions.

Smith's research focuses on computer-mediated collective action: the ways group dynamics change when they take place in and through social cyberspaces. Many "groups" in cyberspace produce public goods and organize themselves in the form of a commons (for related papers see: http://www.connectedaction.net/marc-smith/). Smith's goal is to visualize these social cyberspaces, mapping and measuring their structure, dynamics and life cycles. At Microsoft, he developed the "Netscan" web application and data mining engine that allows researchers studying Usenet newsgroups and related repositories of threaded conversations to get reports on the rates of posting, posters, crossposting, thread length and frequency distributions of activity. Smith applied this work to the development of a generalized community analysis platform for Telligent, providing a web based system for groups of all sizes to discuss and publish their material to the web and analyze the emergent trends that result. He contributes to the open and free NodeXL project (http://www.codeplex.com/nodexl) that adds social network analysis features to the familiar Excel spreadsheet. A tutorial on social network analysis is evolving into a book and is freely available (http://casci.umd.edu/NodeXL_Teaching). NodeXL enables social network analysis of email, twitter, flickr, www, facebook and other network data sets.

The Connected Action consulting group (http://www.connectedaction.net) applies social science methods in general and social network analysis techniques in particular to enterprise and internet social media usage. SNA analysis of data from message boards, blogs, wikis, friend networks, and shared file systems can reveal insights into organizations and processes. Community managers can gain actionable insights into the volumes of community content created in their social media repositories. Mobile social software applications can visualize patterns of association that are otherwise invisible.

Smith received a B.S. in International Area Studies from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1988, an M.Phil. in social theory from Cambridge University in 1990, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA in 2001. He is an affiliate faculty at the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington and the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. Smith is also a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Media-X Program at Stanford University.

[e-mail]
http://www.connectedaction.net
http://nodexl.codeplex.com
http://twitter.com/marc_smith
http://www.smrfoundation.org/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good resource for writers and academics, January 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Communities in Cyberspace (Paperback)

This book covers four main areas in regards to online communities: identity, social order and control, community structure and dynamics, and collective action.

Like many other texts on community, this book tends to focus on older technologies, i.e. Usenet, and MUDs/MOOs. That said, it contains a lot of good analysis done in these areas, and can provide good background for writing about online community. Note that the articles tend to be from the perspective of sociology. The strongest articles, in my opinion, were chapter 2, "Identity and deception in the virtual community," chapter 7, "Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don't ride alone," and chapter 10, "The promise and peril of social action in cyberspace."

If you are interested in building a community or just in the ideas of online communities, this is probably not the best book for you -- it's pretty academic. Check out Jenny Preece's _Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability_ as an alternative.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really good one for researchers, July 11, 2001

By 

Raquel da Cunha Recuero "Raquel Recuero" (Pelotas, RS Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Communities in Cyberspace (Paperback)

Very good articles above important aspects of virtual communities like identity, gender, sociability and other stuff written by people that really knows about the subject, famous researchers. If you are a researcher, you'll love it.

11 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lost in (cyber)space?, March 17, 2000

By 

Joe (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Communities in Cyberspace (Paperback)

I was introduced to this book because my enlightened sociology prof used it as a text for our discussions of sociology and cyberspace.

Some intellectually stimulating articles, like Jodi O'Brien's discussion of gender. It was very stimulating . . . However, the book was far too focused on issues relating to North America and the West generally. What about the rest of the world?

Some sections were extremely dull. This is exciting stuff, why must people pervert it into intellectual cheeseburgers?