Community

Software creator for Linux Robert Young, when discussing the group of people editing software for Linux, stated that "there's no such thing as a community. It's simply a bunch of people with a common interest" (Lessig,2008, p. 180).

According to Rheingold (2012), Barry Wellman describes community as"networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, as sense of belonging and social identity" (p. 163). Somethings computer-mediated relationships can be called virtual communities. For Rheingold, "the difference between an online social network and a community has to do with the quality, continuity, and degree of commitment in the relationships between members. This comes down to whether participants care about each other and are willing to act on their feelings....Community is not about always getting along well. Indeed, the established norms for working through interpersonal conflicts are one of the hallmarks of communities. And although much of the time spend experiencing virtual community comes under the general heading of hanging out--talking casually about things both deep and shallow--virtual communities can organize collective action in the physical world" (p. 163).

According to Rainie and Wellman (2012), "People today are less bound to their national allegiance, village, and neighborhood moorings" (P. 22). For Durkheim and the division of labor in a society, ties are connected through networks, society overall is more integrated: "Their interconnections help to integrate these different milieus in an overall society, providing a social glue that can help hold a society together" (p. 132).

Communities are "Fluid personal networks, rather than...static neighborhood or family groups (Rainine & Wellman, 2012, p. 122).

"Communities continue to exist, except as specially dispersed and differentiated personal networks rather than as neighborhoods or densely knit groups" (Raining & Wellman, 2012, p. 146).

Communities and Nationalism

Anderson’s (2006) position is that nations are understood as a community "because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship" (p. 7). Anderson (2006) states that according to Gellner, nationalism invents nations where they don't exist" (p. 6). Anderson continues, "Communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined" (p. 6).

References:

Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.

Lessig, L. (2008). Remix. New York; Penguin Press.

Rainie, H. & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge: MIT.

Rheingold, H. (2012). Net Smart : How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.