Towards an Interdisciplinary Socio-Technical Definition of Virtual Communities

Abstract

The objective of this chapter is to offer a holistic perspective of virtual communities (VCs) by outlining their underlying concepts and fundamental properties. Firstly, the chapter offers a brief synopsis of research fields that form the basis of socio-technical research on VCs. Key issues and theoretical orientations from four research streams are discussed, namely sociological/psychological, technological, business/management, and economic perspectives. Following this review, the chapter provides a summary of four interdisciplinary literature domains that have significantly contributed to the body of knowledge on VCs. These include computer-mediated communication, community informatics, knowledge management, and internet marketing. Definitions from seminal research studies in these domains are subsequently synthesized to propose an interdisciplinary socio‐technical definition of VCs. The proposed definition offers a nascent ascriptive characterization of VCs along five dimensions of participants, purpose, platforms, protocols, and persona, together constituting the 5 Ps of VCs.