(Source: eWritings, 2008)Online community has been an important part of the Internet, formed around email lists, bulletin boards and forums, with the addition of blogs as a new platform in recent years (White, 2006). Bock (as cited in White, 2005) stated that 'Communities are characterized by three things: common interests, frequent interaction, and identification', and posited that all three must be present for an online space to be a community. Therefore, a blogging community is an online community that consists of bloggers and readers who share similar interests and interact with each other.
Due to the growing popularity of blogging, 3 main types of blogging communities have been identified, with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging between the three. In her article, White (2006) shows us how these patterns are formed.
Figure 1: Blog Based Communities (White, 2006)In a Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, the focus and power in this community is firmly in the owner or central blogger's control (e.g. KennySia.com).
A Central Connecting Topic Community is formed by blogs linked by a common passion or topic (e.g. Global Voices, Lolcats);
whereas Boundaried Communities are collections of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform (e.g. Nuffnang, LiveJournal).
The structure of a blogging community is relatively simple. Let us take KennySia.com as an example for the "one blog centric community". The sole contributor and owner of the blog is Kenny Sia, who produces the content and takes care of everything related to his website. Hence, he is the focal point, or "central identity" of the community. Readers and commentators make up the population of the community, where they post their comments, share ideas, get to know each other, thus providing a basis for relationship and personal identities. However, if the central blogger, that is Kenny Sia, were to close down his blog, the community formed around his website would definitely shatter and the members would then lose all ties to one another.
Hence, it is important to keep in mind that community is only present when individual and collective identity are expressed; when we care about who said what, not just the what; when relationship is part of the dynamic and links are no longer the only currency of exchange (Packwood, 2005; as cited in White, 2006).
(Source: orbitalRPM, 2010)
A Central Connecting Topic Community is formed by blogs linked by a common passion or topic (e.g. Global Voices, Lolcats);
whereas Boundaried Communities are collections of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform (e.g. Nuffnang, LiveJournal).
The structure of a blogging community is relatively simple. Let us take KennySia.com as an example for the "one blog centric community". The sole contributor and owner of the blog is Kenny Sia, who produces the content and takes care of everything related to his website. Hence, he is the focal point, or "central identity" of the community. Readers and commentators make up the population of the community, where they post their comments, share ideas, get to know each other, thus providing a basis for relationship and personal identities. However, if the central blogger, that is Kenny Sia, were to close down his blog, the community formed around his website would definitely shatter and the members would then lose all ties to one another.
Hence, it is important to keep in mind that community is only present when individual and collective identity are expressed; when we care about who said what, not just the what; when relationship is part of the dynamic and links are no longer the only currency of exchange (Packwood, 2005; as cited in White, 2006).
(Source: orbitalRPM, 2010)References:
- White, N 2005, How Some Folks Have Tried to Describe Community, Full Circle Associates: Nancy White, viewed 14 April 2010, http://www.fullcirc.com/community/definingcommunity.htm
- White, N 2006, Blogs and community: launching a new paradigm for online
community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 14 April 2010, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community
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