Living in virtual communities: an ethnography of human relationships in cyberspace

Abstract

This paper outlines some of the issues involved in the development of human relationships in cyberspace. Set within the wider context of the Internet and society it investigates how geographically distant individuals are coming together on the Internet to inhabit new kinds of social spaces or virtual communities. People ‘live in’ and ‘construct’ these new spaces in such a way as to suggest that the Internet is not a placeless cyberspace that is distinct and separate from the real world. Building on the work of other cyberethnographers, the author combines original ethnographic research in Cybercity, a Virtual Community, with face-to-face meetings to illustrate how, for many people, cyberspace is just another place to meet. Second, she suggests that people in Cybercity are investing as much effort in maintaining relationships in cyberspace as in other social spaces. Her preliminary analysis suggests that by extending traditional human relationships into Cybercity, they are widening their webs of relationships, not weakening them. Human relationships in cyberspace are formed and maintained in similar ways to those in wider society. Rather than being exotic and removed from real life, they are actually being assimilated into everyday life. Furthermore, they are often moved into other social settings, just as they are in offline life.

Keywords:

• Internet
• ethnography
• friendship
• trust
• cyberspace

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denise Carter

Denise Carter is a lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Hull, with particular interests in the transformative effects of the Internet, and, its increasing embeddedness in everyday lives. She is currently working on writing an ethnographic account of her three years living and working in a virtual community. This research, among other things, looked at friendship and community, new theories of space and place, the ways in which the challenges of online ethnography informs contemporary ethnographic practices and the writing of postmodern ethnography. For more information see Denise's own website at http://www.denisecarter.net