Virtual communities: Interaction, identity and authority in digital communication

Abstract

Abstract This paper analyzes two settings of digital communication in which social actors participate, interact and engage differently within virtual communities. Online identities are interactionally and discursively constructed and this process defines differences in groupness, illustrating the nature of those online spaces. This study builds on the notion of Citizen Sociolinguistics, that is, ordinary people producing metacommentaries on language uses, to examine the data in different digital communication settings. This work analyzes 500 comments posted by readers on the site of the newspaper El País, in response to an article announcing the new Spanish orthographic reforms. Additionally, it analyzes 200 threads of the “Sólo español” (“Spanish only”) sub-forum within WordReference.com. The analysis investigates identity and hierarchy in digital communication as socio-cultural results of linguistic interaction. By analyzing interaction and identity in online spaces, this paper proposes empirical ways to account for differences in virtual communities, reconsiders established criteria such as time and regularity in interaction, and proposes new criteria (hierarchy and authority) to accentuate the distinctions regarding virtual communities.