Online Communities

Abstract

This special issue revisits the concept of online communities within the contemporary media landscape. Defined as any virtual space where people come together with others to converse, exchange information or other resources, learn, play, or just be with each other (Kraut et al., 2012), online communities have undergone significant transformations due to advances in information technology. The proliferation of sophisticated devices and diverse digital content, alongside the ubiquity of freely available digital resources, has reshaped their nature. While online communities at the early stage were characterized by text-based communication via platforms such as bulletin boards, mailing lists, and early social networking services, current modalities of exchange have expanded to encompass financial and non-financial support, commerce, viewership, and competitive engagement, with participants extending from human users to virtual avatars, and a mixture of both. Furthermore, the traditional dichotomy between offline and online communities is increasingly blurred by technologies like mixed reality. The rise of enterprise social networking platforms has also fostered the growth of online communities beyond consumer-to-consumer interactions, shedding light on business-to-business interactions. This special issue aims to consolidate diverse scholarly perspectives on these evolving phenomena, offering a critical re-examination of online communities in the context of the present-day media ecosystem.