Sunday, October 24, 2004

The relationship between online and offline communities: the case of the Queer Sisters

The relationship between online and offline communities: the case of the Queer Sisters
Joyce Y.M. Nip

Media, Culture & Society 2004 SAGE Publications Vol. 26(3): 409–428

This article is a case study (1999-2000) of a bulletin board on the world-wide web and the women’s group who founded it in Hong Kong, the Queer Sisters. It found that the community formed on the bulletin board differed significantly from the original Queer Sisters over major goals and norms. The main difference being that the online community was much more about developing and maintaining personal relationships, whilst the original group was much more committed to political activism

The article applies 'Medium theory' in which technology is seen as an important context in which communication takes place

  • considers technology as a shaper of the communications environment.
  • The new environment created by communications technology is considered a more important influence than the content transmitted by the technology.
  • contends that the type of media and patterns of use encourage certain behaviours, social interactions, social identities and structures of social life
  • Applied to the Internet, interconnectivity and interactivity are considered to reconfigure time and space, and in turn this reconfigures the individual and networks of relationships.


"Whether online communities qualify as genuine communities is an issue of disagreement. Instead of going into arguments, it is more important to recognize the existence of the new forms of human association on the Internet. One may judge not whether something is or is not a
community, but rather the degree to which something is a community."

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