I also want to explore this further. I need to know where do you blog?

Me too. I'm also doing a PhD and thinking of a section on blogs. The thing that bothers me about online communities is that like-minded people clustering is a fine source of warmth and cosiness, but it's too easy to avoid people who don't agree with you. They tend to be an intellectual form of cultural enclaves and while the comfort that offers keeps me coming back, it's an unrealistic picture of the social world.
Good luck with it. It's easy to imagine your work making an important contribution to how things go in the future.

This is of high potential.

Great article
I would have to disagree somewhat with Chainsmoker.
One of the great things about on-line communities is that they are not constrained by the boundaries of space and time in the same way as communities based around a place and this expands the kind of ideas and types of people with which you can engage. It can be reasonably easy to avoid people who disagree with you in place based communities. The part of Melbourne where I live is mostly populated by people who share my political views, as is my local pub and also my workplace. On-Line Opinion is one way that I can escape my own intellectual /cultural enclave. One interesting thing about on-line communities is that, more so than most other types of community, you have to make a choice to belong to then. They are easy to leave and easier to be excluded from than many place based communities. For better or worse I don't think that on-line communities offer the same security in belonging as many other communities. One other point, on-line communities/relationships often overlap with other types of relationships. Some people still seem to like face-to-face relationships and members of on-line communities often end up meeting in person, in fact use on-line communities primarily to facilitate this

Try www.blogger.com free and easy

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your article. As a former sociology student and blogger I found it an interesting reflection considering I rarely seem to read about the applications of sociological theory in the mainstream. I recently decided to try my hand at blogging I feel a little ncomfortable mixing the subjective with the objective but I can also see advocacy/educational potential in providing a window into certain personal experiences.

In my case the experience is that of a single parent raising a gifted child through homeschooling. http://rosiereal.blogspot.com/

cheers
Rosie Williams

DW,

I agree with you on the several issues raised while still agreeing with myself. What a stupid sentence, but you know what I mean. This is what is so fascinating about online communities - they're not communities in the normal sense of the word, whatever that means. The word community is a much-abused one and can mean anything the speaker wants it to mean. Online communities take that one step further by being whatever the individuals who create them want them to be without the normal kinds of consensus.

Much ignored sociologist Louis Wirth was interested in both consensus and absence, absence meaning the things we're not aware of because we take them for granted. Culture I suppose. Ethnicity. Consensus is highly dependent upon absence and to my way of thinking online communities do weird things to absence and consensus which makes them look different.

I haven't been doing this for long enough to have experienced much of the stuff online people must experience, but I'm learning.

A very interesting article, like others I have pondered these questions. I have a number of blogs and follow a few. The ones I follow are all different and mostly forum styles.

One line communities can give you both communication as well as insight in how people differ. I would say on most ocassions people are more honest with their expressed views on bogs, as they are not faced with someone where they are socially obliged to be amiable.

I have a blog for my business which has proved interesting and has also improved turnover. Customers can ask questions and get an answer very quickly, lots of the time whilst they are on line. I think this will be a growth section of the online communities, as business sees what customer interaction does for them. Maybe I shoudn't have said that, before I patented it.

Hi DW,

Your mention of the term 'consensus' caught my eye. I feel that a lot of sociological analysis casts doubt on the idea that there is much in the way of consensus going on in the dynamics of society. Consensus implies mutual decision making- a balance of power. Much sociological theory would claim that there is rarely anything approaching a balance of power either between individuals in small groups such as families or between larger groups in society (political or economic).

I've read a criticism of blogging that it can create a false sense of comfort or the 'echo chamber effect'. I've read this in relation to US political blogs. Is that what you mean by 'absence'?

Anyway, if anyone has links to interesting background articles on blogging can they pass them along as I'd like to know what I've got myself into.

cheers
Rosie
(whose blogg does not feel like a false sense of paradise)