Virtual community: Difference between revisions

In his book [[The Wealth of Networks]] from 2006, [[Yochai Benkler]] suggests that virtual communities would "come to represent a new form of human communal existence, providing new scope for building a shared experience of human interaction".<ref name="Benkler">{{cite book|last=Benkler|first=Yochai|year=2006|title=The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom|url=http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_10.pdf|access-date=26 November 2013|archive-date=10 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190910191017/http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_10.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Although Benkler's prediction has not become entirely true, clearly communications and social relations are extremely complex within a virtual community. The two main effects that can be seen according to Benkler are a "thickening of preexisting relations with friends, family and neighbours" and the beginnings of the "emergence of greater scope for limited-purpose, loose relationships".<ref name="Benkler" /> Despite being acknowledged as "loose" relationships, Benkler argues that they remain meaningful.

Previous concerns about the effects of Internet use on community and family fell into two categories: 1) sustained, intimate human relations "are critical to well-functioning human beings as a matter of psychological need" and 2) people with "[[social capital]]" are better off than those who lack it. It leads to better results in terms of political participation.<ref name="Benkler" /> However, Benkler argues that unless Internet connections actually displace direct, unmediated, human contact, there is no basis to think that using the Internet will lead to a decline in those nourishing connections we need psychologically, or in the useful connections we make socially. Benkler continues to suggest that the nature of an individual changes over time, based on social practices and expectations. There is a shift from individuals who depend upon locally embedded, unmediated and stable social relationships to networked individuals who are more dependent upon their own combination of strong and weak ties across boundaries and weave their own fluid relationships. Manuel Castells calls this the 'networked society'.<ref name="Benkler" />

In the 1998 book ''Communities in Cyberspace'', authors [[Mark A. Smith|Marc A. Smith]] and [[Peter Kollock]], perceives the interactions with strangers are based upon with whom we are speaking or interacting with. Everything from clothes, voice, [[body language]], [[Gesture|gestures]], and power, we rely on these abilities to identify others, which play a role with how we will speak or interact with them. Smith and Kollock believes that online interactions breaks away of all of the face-to-face gestures and signs that us people tend to show in front of one another. Although this is difficult to do online, it also provides space to play with one’s identity.'''<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780203194959/communities-cyberspace-peter-kollock-marc-smith |title=Communities in Cyberspace |year=2002 |editor-last=Kollock |editor-first=Peter |doi=10.4324/9780203194959 |isbn=9780203194959 |editor-last2=Smith |editor-first2=Marc |access-date=18 November 2022 |archive-date=27 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221027153413/https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780203194959/communities-cyberspace-peter-kollock-marc-smith |url-status=live }}</ref>'''

The gaming community is extremely vast and accessible to a wide variety of people, However, there are negative effects on the relationships 'gamers' have with the medium when expressing identity of gender. Doctor [[Adrienne Shaw]] notes in her 2012 article ''Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity,'' that gender, perhaps subconsciously, plays a large role in identifying oneself as a 'gamer.' <ref>{{Cite journal|last=Shaw|first=Adrienne|date=2012|title=Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity|journal=New Media & Society|volume=14 | issue = 1 |pages=28–44|doi=10.1177/1461444811410394|s2cid=206727217}}</ref> Representation in video games have become a problem as it forget the minority of players who are not just the stereotyped white teen male gamer, as there are so many players from different backgrounds who consume these games but aren't being represented.