Virtual Coexistence in a Persian Diasporic Weblog Community

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is part of a longitudinal study on a group of Iranians migrants residing in Australia. It focuses on the formation of a virtual community among a group of Persian bloggers in the diaspora. The paper starts with an overview of virtual communities and the conditions that need to be met for any online group to be considered a community. This is followed by the communicative characteristics of weblogs that allow for community formation. The discussion then moves specifically to the examination of the existence of a sense of community (SOC) among the Persian bloggers in the diaspora by highlighting different communication features of these weblogs and analysing their social networks. In doing so, the discussion concentrates on the performances of the bloggers and their interactions with each other, and the way they perform cultural identity in their virtual circles. The findings show the importance of virtual spaces for diasporic groups and how they are used to form clos-knit circles in the diaspora.