Artikel: The networked nature of community: online and offline

In internetjaren een béétje uit de oude doos (2002) maar volgens mij nog steeds relevant en interessant.

"Communities started changing from groups to networks well before the advent of the Internet. Initially, people believed that industrialization and bureaucratization would dissolve community groups and leave only isolated, alienated individuals. Then scholars discovered that communities continued, but more as sparsely-knit, spatiallydispersed social networks rather than as densely-knit, village-like local groups. A similar debate has developed about the impact of the Internet on community. Some fear that it will isolate people from face-to-face interactions. Others extol the Internet's ability to support far-flung communities of shared interest.

Evidence to address this debate about the impact of the Internet on community is thundering in. Three studies done at the NetLab are concomitant with general findings, both in North America and worldwide, that rather than weakening community, the Internet adds to existing face-to-face and telephone contact. Rather than increasing or destroying community, the Internet can best be seen transforming community such that it becomes integrated into rhythms of daily life, with life online integrated with offline activities."

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