Community On-Line: Cybercommunity and Modernity

Why do people participate in cybercommunities?

Extended Abstract
Victoria Wang
Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology,
School of Human Sciences, Swansea University,
Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP

Cybercommunities are online social spaces. They may be online chat systems based on text, or virtual worlds
based on 2D or 3D graphics. They may be created for different social purposes, from gaming to dating to mili-
tary training. The growth of cybercommunities is a notable social phenomenon, especially in the contemporary
Western societies. In some more technically progressive cybercommunities, participants are able to re-create
themselves, environments, situations and communities, realising all kinds of advanced human activities, making
these environments into homomorphic projections of the real world. Following this, perhaps, the rise of cy-
bercommunities has something to do with the modern world. The rapid growth of cybercommunities seems to
suggest that they are able to offer more than some communities in the real world. What can cybercommunities
provide for participants that some communities in the real world fail to cater for? In this paper, we introduce
the possibility of using Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories of modernity to analyse the reflexive relationship be-
tween cybercommunities and the modern world, as well as the reasons behind some individuals’ participation
in cybercommunities.

We argue that in some influential theories of society, the modern world is interpreted as an uncertain place
to live (e.g., Bauman 2001; Giddens 1991 & 1990). The uncertain world has driven many individuals to seek al-
ternative life styles and cybercommunities may be perceived as possible options. There may be various possible
reasons behind individuals’ interest in cybercommunities. These reasons may form a sociological terrain with
two extreme polarities. At one pole, the cold scientific rationality of modernity and its structures and politics
have generated an enduring sense of nostalgia for community as a source of security and belonging; at the other
pole, a growing sense of individualism has induced a demand for environments where the emancipation of self
could be achieved. The reasons behind some individuals’ interests in cybercommunities may depend on their
individualistic interpretation of, and identification with, the conditions of modernity, self-identity and computer
technologies. The interpretation and identification rest upon whether a person attaches greater value to his
individual autonomy or to his very sense of ontological security, to freedom, experiment or, to belonging. In
mapping this social terrain, two extreme cases are examined: the pursuit of modernity and the retreat from
modernity.

In the first part of the abstract, we establish the reflexive relationship between cybercommunities and moder-
nity. We argue that cybercommunities are extreme products of modernity, exemplifying some characteristics of
modernity. The formation and various aspects of cybercommunities may be understood as extreme manifesta-
tions of the co-construction of technology and society. The birth and rise of cybercommunities can be explained
by the modern discourse of community. Many characteristics of postmodern communities can be found in cy-
bercommunities. In the second part of the extended abstract, we turn our attention to the individual and argue
that some individuals’ participation in cybercommunities may be interpreted as a response to modernity.

On cybercommunity

In the modern world, many transformative developments relating to postmodernism, globalisation and the
Internet have challenged the concept of community in classical sociology and community studies. The discourse
of community in the contemporary social and political situation, appears to be intimately related to an aspi-
ration for belonging and a search for self-identity. With this in mind, an appreciation for cybercommunities as
extreme products of modernity may depend on an understanding of theories of modernity, the modern discourse
of community, as well as a notion of community that emphasise on a community’s supportive roles to individuals
and its nature as a source for security and belonging.

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Actually, modernity in itself is the subject of various theories, analysing it from different perspectives. A
more detailed account of theories of modernity is provided in the full version of the paper. For our use, moder-
nity is interpreted as a set of conditions that characterises modern societies, cultures, institutions and human
activities. Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories are adopted as a set of analytical tools to provide a possible analyti-
cal framework. In the full version of the paper, we provide a full exploration of Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories
of modernity and the advantages of choosing these theories.

Drawing ideas from Giddens (1991 & 1990) and Berget et al. (1974) cybercommunities can be interpreted
as extreme products of modernity. Cybercommunities are products of technology, which has made modernisa-
tion possible (Berger et al. 1974). Berger defines modernisatsion as “transformation of the world by technology”
(Berger et al. 1974, p. 15). He considers technology and bureaucracy as the two primary carriers of modernity,
which consists of “the growth and diffusion of a set of institutions rooted in the transformation of the economy
by means of technology” (Berger et al. 1974, p. 15-16). In the past, technology was seen as undermining
community by bringing about different forms of organised institutional orders (e.g, Berger et al. 1974). Con-
temporarily, “no discussion of community today can be complete without some consideration of the role that
technology plays in reshaping social relations” (Delanty 2003, p. 167). Moreover, when the idea of cybercom-
munity was first introduced, it was seen as an example of technological change and innovation having the ability
to turn around the social and cultural decay in contemporary society (Rheingold 1993).

The modern discourse of community can be expressed as a coin with the loss of community on one side and the
recovery of community on the other side (Cohen 1970). The loss of community entails the sentiment that the
decline of the institutions of the Middle ages, the commercialisation of agriculture that came with the emergence
of capitalisation and the decline in the autonomy of the cities as a result of the rise of the modern nation-states,
led to the sense of the loss of community. If modernity destroys community, then it must be recovered in a new
form. Contemporarily, the communal movement in pursuit of an alternative to modernity is often materialised
in a retreat from modern society, and based on a particular concept of community. This kind of community
offers a different model of social relations and institutional organisations from the normative framework brought
about by modernity (e.g, the Kibbutz). In the full version of the paper, the modern discourse of community is
discussed explicitly.

We argue that the birth and rise of cybercommunity may be interpreted as a response to the recovery of
community. Jones wrote “Crucial to the rhetoric surrounding of the Internet. . . is the promise of a renewed
sense of community and, in many instances, new types and formations of community” (Jones 1998, p. 3). Cy-
bercommunities exist in cyberspace, not physical place. No one actually lives in cybercommunities. In this sense,
cybercommunities may be interpreted as symbolically constructed community of meaning: a conglomeration of
normative codes and values that provides community members with a sense of identity (Cohen 1985). Anderson
proposes that all communities are imagined since “in the minds of each [community member] lives the image of
their communion” (Anderson 1983, p. 15). Rheingold (1993) and Baym (1995) argue that cybercommunity is a
real entity that is given meaning by its participants and characterised by common value systems, norms, rules,
the sense of identity, commitment and association. Reality is socially constructed, cybercommunities exist in
the minds of participants; they exist because participants give them meaning. Williams’ research demonstrate
that participants who “spend significant amounts of time interacting with others online, who live a large part
of their lives in ‘virtual’ spaces, and who recognise that actions online have real consequences, much like in the
offline world, consider themselves to be part of a community” (Williams 2006; emphasis in original).

Actually, virtuality may be considered as a product of modernity, which ‘dis-places’ the individual and makes
place more phantasmagoric (Giddens 1990, p. 140). However, phantasmagoric place that “shades off into indef-
inite time-space from the familiarity of the home and the local neighbourhood is not at all a purely impersonal
one”, instead, intimate relationships can be sustained at distance (Giddens 1990, pp. 140-143). The idea may
help to explain the imaginary aspects of cybercommunities (Anderson 1983), the demise of offline communities
and the emergence of culture at-a-distance. The transformation of intimacy explains individuals’ trust toward
non-face-to-face interactions brought about by disembedding mechanisms that have come to characterise moder-
nity (Giddens 1990, p. 142). These abstract disembedding mechanisms are constantly displacing the individual
and familiar contexts around the individual, and reembedding these in different contexts, where intimacy and
abstract systems interact, connecting familiarity and estrangement (Giddens 1990, p. 142). With these in mind,
participants’ attachment to cybercommunities is preciously brought about by such mechanisms of displacement
that have transformed traditional notions of intimacy and trust.

Cybercommunity seems to be akin to the postmodern idea of community without propinquity (Webber 1963).

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Instead of strong organic ties, postmodern communities are often communities of strangers (Turner 2001). The
technologies of modernity have transformed the notion of community as face-to-face relations by introducing too
many distances into everyday life. These distances, arising from mobilities make it very difficult for face-to-face
community to be a social reality: families and friends are scattered around the world, and home and work may
be separated by different localities (Gergen 1991). As a direction response, individuals are relying increasingly
on other forms of communication to sustain their realities, values and agendas (Gergen 2001). Actually, mobility
is one of the key features of modern social life (Urry 2000). Constructed by technologies, cyberspace is able to
produce communities without propinquity by bringing together strangers in a sociality often based on anonymity.

Actually, various characteristics of postmodern communities may be located in cybercommunities. Like post-
modern communities, cybercommcybercommunities are reflexively organised: more likely to be chosen and
more reflexive. Reflexivity, therefore, becomes the conscious questioning of social belonging (Lash 1994). Lash
(1994) highlights the aesthetic sphere as the main location of reflexive community where a kind of groundless
community exists. Marked by an aesthetic sensibility than symbolic codes, Maffesoli’s emotional community is
characterised by “fluidity, occasional gatherings and dispersal”, and may be found in a proximity without space,
in de-territorial groupings and in open networks (Maffesoli 1996, p. 76). Maffesoli (1996) too suggests that
postmodern community is to be found in forms of association sustained by everyday life and informal friendship
networks. Pahl (2001) argues that friendship is becoming increasingly important in social relations, even replac-
ing family and kin relations. This argument may be used to explain the flourishing of cybercommunities that
are not based on organic relations. For Maffesoli (1996), postmodern community has no foundation, no moral
purpose, no project; it refers to nothing but the relations of sociability that constitute it; exists in temporary
groupings in the flux of life; and creates new sociality. In such communities, the sense of sociality and belonging
may be seen as sustained by the transformation of intimacy (Giddens 1990). In this sense, individual identities:
as expressed in the relations between self and other in cybercommunities, may be seen as exemplifying the
postmodernist thought about the notion of self.

Many postmodern thinkers revealed the self as a constructed category (e.g., Elliott 1999; Foucault 1988).
The self can be invented in many ways: it is a social self formed in relations of difference rather than of unity
and coherence. For Foucault, it is the practices of the modern world and modern technology that produce a
different kind of subject, which does not simply objectify and dominate the world through technology, but is
constituted by this technology (Dreyfus 2002). Perhaps, cybercommunities may be interpreted as a product of
such a subject. The self maybe less trapped in cybercommunities, yet new kinds of struggles of self-identity
have appeared. The notion of created self has put more pressure on the ideas of familiarity and strangeness than
ever before, both in terms of within the self and in the relationship between self and other. The strangeness
captures the essence of the feeling of insecurity, contingency and uncertainty both in the modern world and in
the identity of the self. The familiarity explains the sense of belonging and security that cybercommunities may
provide for their participants. Perhaps, the emergence of cybercommunities fills the vacuum in contemporary
society that has come with the opening up of culture to individualism.

On Self-identity

If the rise of cybercommunities is a direct response to modernity, then it is possible to related some individuals’
participations in cybercommunities to various divergent forces of modernity. Some individuals’ participations
in cybercommunities may be interpreted as a double-edged response to modernity: retreating from the existing
imperfect social world in the pursuit of a paradise, or pursuing an extreme version of modernity to experience
fully, many characteristics of modern social order. However, regardless of the reasons behind some individuals’
participations in cybercommunities, the act of engaging in a context, which is often argued to be different from
the existing contexts of the physical world, is profoundly modern. If modernity is associated with a quality of
miracle that delivers individuals from the sufferings of hunger, disease, death, etc. (Berger et al. 1974), then to
those who pursue modernity, cybercommunities may be seen as contexts that offer individuals equality, freedom
and the opportunity to achieve a strong sense of self. Conversely, if modernity is understood as “a spreading
condition of homelessness” (Berger et al. 1974, p. 124), then cybercommunities may be perceived as the promise
of a new home.

To understand the social terrain constructed by various reasons behind individuals’ participation in cyber-
communities, we have deviced a map, in which individuals with disparate idealogical and pragmatic interests
may locate themselves. This map of the social terrain surrounding individuals interested in cybercommunities
is constructed using an analytical model with three ‘dimensions’, based upon the following three sociological
concepts, namely, modernity, self-identity, and computer technology. Firstly, the concept of modernity refers
to an individual’s interpretation of, and identification with, the conditions of modernity; secondly, the concept

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of self-identity refers to an individual’s perception and evaluation of the notion of self; thirdly, the concept of
computer technology refers to an individual’s bond with computer technologies, and awareness of the computer’s
technical capabilities. Each of these three properties is, of course, a sociological imperative. Combining these
properties, it may be possible to make a model with which to analyse the social conditions of individual partici-
pants. The social condition of each individual is characterised by some degree, or measure, of these imperatives.
Each property is in itself a spectrum with two polarities, indicating two extreme cases: the pursuit of modernity
and the retreat from modernity. A full explanation of this map and an explicit analysis of it, are provided in
the full version of the paper.

Whatever this terrain may be, in the analysis, it will come down to a question about individuals’ self iden-
tities. In cybercommunities, participants’ self-identities are expressed via their created avatars, which can be a
three-dimensional (3D) model, a two-dimensional (2D) icon, or a text construct, depending on the distinctive
nature of a particular online environment. Giddens (1991) argues that the self is embodied and most individuals
are absorbed and feel themselves to be a unified body and self. Moreover, the body is not only an observable
representation of the self, but also inherently within the self. Following this, an avatar could be identified as a
visual representation of the self, and named as the cyber body, performing similar functions as the body. Giddens
wrote the body is “experienced as a particular mode of coping with external situations and events” (Giddens
1991, p. 56). However, at times, a state of disembodiment could be experienced, “in which the body appears
as an object or instrument manipulated by the self from behind the scenes” (Giddens 1991, p. 59). The cyber
body may initially be viewed as in such a state of being manipulated by the self. If this is true, then the reason
behind having the cyber body - personalising, and intensifying the sensation that is derived from the pursuit of,
or retreat from, modernity is defeated.

Following this logic, perhaps, a sense of intensified pleasure, or alleviated anxiety can only be experienced
with a precondition of embodiment between the self and the cyber body, since it is the self behind the computer
screen that would experience the sensation. Assuming that the cyber body supposes to play a similar role as
the body, then having a visual image as the cyber body is important in sustaining feelings of embodiment, since
“where it [the body] is not visible at all, ordinary feelings of embodiment - of being ‘with’ and ‘in’ the flow
of day-to-day conduct - become dislocated or dissolved” (Giddens 1991, p. 60). Following this logic, having a
3D image - a close visual imitation of the body, may be the most appropriate in performing the cognitive roles
that the body plays as related to the self, achieving a strong sense of embodiment, as well as an intensified
cyber experience. Giddens wrote “How far normal appearances can be carried on in ways consistent with the
individual’s biographical narrative is of vital importance for feelings of ontological security” (Giddens 1991,
p. 58). Perhaps, having 3D avatars in cybercommunities enables the observation of bodily activities, which is
intrinsic to the continuous reflexive awareness of the self (Giddens 1991). In the full version of the paper, this
suggestion is analysed explicitly, subjectively and intersubjectively.

Subjectively, a 3D avatar may enable and facilitate better bodily observation and self-identification. The need
to maintain certain degree of normalcy (Giddens 1991, p.127) as a protective cocoon may be generally applied
across the spectrum of reasons behind individuals’ participations in cybercommunities. At one extreme of the
spectrum, if the cyber body is created to facilitate the retreat from modernity, then having a bodily image may
be viewed as a safe blanket, making the process of retreat less risky psychologically. At the other end of the
spectrum, if the cyber body is created to facilitate the pursuit of modernity, then having familiar bodily images
in cybercommunities as close to their real life images as possible may consciously bridge the cap between the
participants’ real and virtual lives, thus enhancing the sensation that is provided by their cyber experiences.
Some participants in cybercommunities may use photos/graphic images that they identify themselves with, as
well as identifiable by others to represent themselves; whereas, others may use their real names, or names which
are short forms or close imitations of their real names, to name their avatars. Moreover, having an observable
3D bodily image may be able to extend the sentiment of real world face-to-face interactions across time and
space. The notion of a self is crucial in examining the core reasons behind cybercommunities’ appeal to some
individuals. At one end of the spectrum, the context of cybercommunities may be the only possibility for an
individual to feel a sense of complete detachment from the self, thus achieving a state of total immersion in
cybercommunities, in the sense that he is able to create another self to transcend not only his physical, social
identity but also his “being”. The desire of creating a self which detaches from the self completely has been
significantly visible in literature since the Enlightenment. Cybercommunities provide opportunities for some
individuals to re-create the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” scenario.

Intersubjectively, having a observable 3D avatar may facilitate social interaction and relationship building.
It may be suggested that observation of others, as well as being observed by others, is the first step of social
interaction, facilitating the building of relationship and emergence of community. At the same time, the emer-

4
gence of community provides participants with a more stable context for social interaction, thus strengthens
their individual self-identity. Berger wrote “[S]table identity can only emerge in reciprocity with stable social
contexts” (Berger et al. 1974). Giddens considered that to be “able to join with others on an equal basis in the
production and reproduction of social relations, is to be able to exert a continuous and successful, monitoring of
face and body” (Giddens 1991, p. 56). Like real world communities, cybercommunities are contexts for social
interaction, providing community members with a specific context, enabling them to search for their personal
subjectivity through intersubjective interactions - the building of relationships. Perhaps, cybercommunities
have provided a context for some individuals to experience pure relationship - a kind of relationship that is not
fastened by external social or economic conditions, but based on commitment, intimacy and mutual trust (Gid-
dens 1991, p. 88). Pure relationship exists only for what the relationship can bring to the partners involved; it is
openly, reflexively organised, and on a continuous basis, in which the individual not only recognise the other but
also affirms his own self-identity (Giddens 1991, pp. 89-98). Since participation in cybercommunities is purely
optional. Pure relationships between members of cybercommunities exists for their own sake. In practice, the
desire to find pure relationship may provide a better understanding as to why some individuals have cyber rela-
tionships, and even cyber marriages. It also provides some insights to the rational behind cyber dating services,
in the sense that individuals get to know one another based on initial interaction in cybercommunities, then
they may or may not decide to meet up offline, and build offline relationships. Individuals are not pre-judged
by one another based on their real world physical appearances and social statuses, and this kind of relationship
tends to be sustained upon mutual interests and experiences.

Conclusion:

This paper relates the rise of cybercommunities and the reasons behind individuals’ participation in cyber-
communities to the modern world. It makes use of Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories of modernity as a set of
analytical tools.

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