Okay, the 1-minute summary of my thesis topic goes like this:
There is currently some debate in the literature about whether online-only communities can exist. Some say (mostly Internet researchers) say yes, others (mostly community researchers) say no. I argue that among the reasons for their difference in opinion are differences in how they define community. Thus, my thesis is an attempt to examine historical definitions from the community studies literature and current definitions used by the two sides and from this figure out where the disjuncture is. And develop my own conclusions along the way, of course. No primary research here--just a lot of lit review and a little bit of theorizing. Hopefully it will be finished today.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Thesis, dread thesis
Date: 2004-01-22 02:12 pm (UTC)There is currently some debate in the literature about whether online-only communities can exist. Some say (mostly Internet researchers) say yes, others (mostly community researchers) say no. I argue that among the reasons for their difference in opinion are differences in how they define community. Thus, my thesis is an attempt to examine historical definitions from the community studies literature and current definitions used by the two sides and from this figure out where the disjuncture is. And develop my own conclusions along the way, of course. No primary research here--just a lot of lit review and a little bit of theorizing. Hopefully it will be finished today.