Online Technology Redefines “Community,” Says UF Researcher

July 18, 1997

GAINESVILLE — Millions of dollars and years of research created a communications system where Star Trek fans in the United States can instantly trade information with fellow Trekkies in Peru or folk music aficionados in Alaska can update others in Bulgaria.

Although these small communities of interest have existed for years, the increased communication and information capability of new technology has helped attract and retain new members, says a University of Florida researcher.

“The Internet has allowed people to stay in touch better and meet others with common interests,” said Maryl Neff, whose doctoral thesis in journalism focused on media usage in the folk music community. “Through these common interests, people can meet others, at least online, in parts of the world they might not have previously had contact with.”

Neff found that community ties seemed to have a stronger relation to media usage than to the length of membership in the community.

“I suspect that when people are first getting involved in the folk music community, they are looking for as much information as they can get, and they rely heavily on media in this community to give them that information,” Neff said.

For years the main community medium in geographic communities has been the local newspaper. While the term “community” has expanded over the years to include groups of people with common interests rather than just common geographic locations, the advent of the Internet has helped to expand communities of interest.

“For years, the newspaper was considered the community medium for geographic communities,” Neff said. “It was cheap, available to anyone who wanted one, provided information for the community and tended to include more personal information than a local TV broadcast.”

Members of special interest communities could be turning to the Internet because of the expanded communications options and possibilities of the new media.

“Members of the folk music community are spread over the country, relying mostly on traditional print publications,” Neff said. “Traditional magazines come out once a month or every other month, but if you subscribe to a listserve [an online mailing list] you can have news every day. This technology plays a major role in the folk music community because it brings members closer together and allows people to make new contacts.”

Communities of interest differ from the traditional definition of a geographic community, which makes them especially suited to the new technology.

“You wouldn’t say that people who watch ABC News are a community,” said Sebastian Foti, assistant professor of education who also was on Neff’s dissertation committee. “But someone who was interested in a special community or topic could get on a listserve and could interact, get opinions or give criticism, not like a TV broadcast which is essentially passive. This enables someone to find a community centered to their interests, and even if they are a newcomer, become knowledgeable.”

“These communities already existed,” Foti said. “The folk music community communicates primarily through books, mail-outs, signs on telephone poles and word of mouth. This community was well-suited to the Internet.”

Such small communities of interest may find other advantages to the Internet beyond increasing the size of their ranks.

“Small organizations can look at how much money they spend on mail-outs and advertising, when, if people could just get on the Web and see the posting, they could save all that money and put it into other projects,” Foti said.

The increased level of communication also may help recruit new members, who might not have been aware of traditional media representing these communities.

“There are people who never had any interest in technology before who got on line just to do this kind of thing,” Foti said. “I know of several musicians who had no technological skills at all, but people kept asking them where their Web page was so they made one. Most paid other services to do them; now many musicians do it themselves.”