Virtual Communities – A New Sense of Social Intersection
Virtual Communities – A New Sense of Social Intersection

Summary/Abstract: This paper investigates some answers that were given to the question: does the presence of New Media produce changes in the way people choose to get involved in communities? In this respect, the concept of virtual community is studied not only from a cognitive standpoint – as an elastic theoretical construct, with multiple characteristics and a vocabulary of its own –, but from an affective standpoint as well, as an emotional-symbolic construct. Thus, online community involvement can shape our daily lives and become a source of existential meanings. The academic antagonism between the pessimistic perspective and the optimistic one leaves behind a few uninvestigated possibilities. Adopting Benedict Anderson’s idea that all communities have an intrinsic imaginary dimension (they have to exist in people’s minds in order to be effective) and that what differentiates them is the style in which they are imagined, we believe that the theorization of distributed communities can offer fruitful suggestions in our search for a new sense of social intersection.

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