virtual communities and there web presence?

Answer 1

On a surface level the web is nothing more than an information and communication system, the main novelty of which lies in its lack of restrictions and ease of access. The "surfer" does not enter a new spatial dimension but merely downloads electronically stored information. But descriptions applied to this system suggest that it is much more than this. They speak of geographies, architectures, journeys, encounters with other minds and sexual experimentation. What we have is the empirical reality of the encounter with keyboard, screen and text conceptualised as encounters with and in a dimensional space which is a new frontier where human capacities can be tested and where an adaptation of human community must occur to release new potentials. On this frontier the 'natural' forces that we struggle against are those of the mind and the delimiting of the mind by the body. The monsters are those of our own imaginations released, as some see it, from ordinary social constraints. But it also represents a place in which a new form of human communal life can be developed just as on any frontier social interactions are modified to accommodate new and unusual circumstances. Those involved with creating and shaping this new space and those who 'inhabit' these communities claim that cyberspace has unique features which offer solutions to the individualistic and fractured nature of modern society. Some of the unique features offered by virtual communities are:

1. Electronic virtual communities are strategies for the survival of social groupings in the face of modern urban structures and developments which are based on commercial and political interests. Virtual communities can return us to personal interaction, a culture of intimacy in which the individual can communicate with anyone by e-mail, including the President of the USA, as equals.

2. Geography becomes irrelevant. All that is needed to participate in a community is access to the web and each community can access wider networks to take part in world issues and debates. There is no centre to the network and no overall controlling body, so there can be no backwaters which are excluded from a central metropolis. Hierarchy is irrelevant as there is equal access. There can be no marginalisation because, given access to the net, individuals are free to form what associations they wish and to exchange information within a system that cannot be censored.

3. It offers freedom of movement for those who are physically confined. Those who are physically disabled, trapped in totalitarian societies etc. can communicate freely with others, without prejudice.

4. It offers a higher level of democracy through internet sites devoted to political debate and the potential for the canvassing of public opinion on a wide scale. It also offers the possibility of debate and voting on political issues.

How realistic are such claims? Does the terminology of the net describe a reality? It could be simply the case that this manner of speaking concerning cyberspace, conceals that there is, in fact, only the surface level, that this is just a fantasy of escaping from reality. In a sense it can be maintained that just in terms of physical interactions there is nothing new, nothing different. Yet the language used to describe this system uses spatial and relational terms. Those who use the web on a regular basis speak as if it actually transports them to new and distant locations; as if it brings them into proximity with new individuals and as if it enables them to transcend the realities and limitations of the body. So whilst in real terms (I use real here to denote empirical physical experience) there may be nothing new, in conceptual terms there is a set of beliefs, which have developed into a distinct set of concepts, about what cyberspace is. This will have an effect on the ethical stance that should be taken with regard to the system. In other words it is something different from accessing an electronic bibliography or an on-line database. It has rules and protocols for behaviour which are very different to life in the flesh. Virtual life is different. It is different in its moral implications and in the nature of the individual's social experience

What does virtual life consist in? Let us take seriously the title and ask ourselves what kind of community is present. The web is not a virtual community of minds, it is, if we take it on its own terms, a multiplicity of such communities because it is host to a huge variety of different groups each with their own sets of connections. Furthermore, if we accept "virtual community" as a coherent concept, we can identify previously existing kinds of community which were virtual in just this way. This is, I think, an important point, because at least some of the liberties that the web offers, with the consequent loosening of moral responsibility some people so fear, have always been available to us. What the use of the web does is to encourage the idea that the true persona can enter cyberspace unhindered by the body which, in a sense, is left behind. Thus the screen becomes the vehicle for the essential persona and its senses.

However, it would be more accurate to speak of personae because, given the variety of interactions possible on the net and the diversity of means of communication available, it is possible to present oneself as multiple personae. The net is widely claimed to be more interactive than other media, but in one very important sense it is less so; I do not have to wholly engage myself but can present different personae according to the kind of site I enter or according to my mood. I can conceal my presence in a number of ways. Most importantly, these forays into what may be considered alternate existences need have no implications for life extraneous to the web. In this way many virtual communities lack any real moral dimension. Morality too is virtual.

How does this conform to previous types of community? I will begin by defining the concepts 'virtual' and 'community'. For the time being I shall assume that 'mind' is uncontentious. But I will return to the issue of the relation of the mind to the body because it is an important tenet of many advocates of cyberspace that its most valuable contribution is its facilitating a transcendence of the body.

Community is not a concept with a precise definition, except in its use in ecology. This use refers to the interdependence of groups of plants and animals inhabiting the same region. It would be possible to develop an ecology of cyberspace because the history of the web reveals the steady and rapid evolution of a complex and interdependent environment. Here, however, I am concerned with the international organisation of individuals into communities which has been a feature of the web from its beginning. In this sense, community can be defined in such a way that it gradually includes more and more scattered groups. Its narrowest definition is that of a group living in one locality, united by their location, shared aims and a joint responsibility which can be termed 'community spirit'. Casting the net slightly wider, it can be a group of people having cultural, religious, ethnic or other characteristics (eg all being philosophers) in common. It can refer to common ownership or participation, or a community of interests or, finally, the widest scope of all for my purposes, society in general.

Now, as I see it, we can attribute different types and degrees of ethical responsibility to these different concepts of community. This is a topic to be returned to. First I want to consider what is meant when we add 'virtual' to any of the terms used in discussion of the web. In popular speech and in serious assessments of the potential of this new medium we regularly speak of virtual space, virtual reality, virtual community, and so on. In common English virtual means 'having the essence or effect but not the form of' and in the specific case of virtual reality the dictionary defines it as 'a computer generated environment that to the person experiencing it closely resembles reality' [1]. In the case of virtual communities neither of these definitions is entirely acceptable. To see why, I want to return to my opening remark that the web is not the site of the first virtual community.

The concept, or in fact, existence of a virtual community of minds is not dependent on new, which is to say 20th century, technology. From the time of the formation of scholarly or scientific societies and the distribution amongst the members of printed versions of academic papers, or the passage of letters from one to another, such virtual communities can be said to have existed. Thus virtual communities can be seen as having existed since the 17th century [2] Members of such a community are brought together by texts rather than in face to face encounters.

At first sight this appears to be merely a step from my first narrow definition of community -- those in a given locality -- to the wider one of shared interest. After all, the concept of community does not necessarily require physical proximity. Shared interest and, I suggest, some kind of responsibility or ethical code are sufficient conditions, and, moreover, capture important aspects of the concept of community. But this apparently simple broadening of the definition includes a radical change. What has been added is the use of a distance communication system in which ideas are encoded in some form -- in earlier times in written or printed texts -- which are then distributed amongst a like-minded group of people who decode or translate the information. Such a group might well have a physical location for meetings where everyone can participate, but physical attendance is not necessary for participation. Some members may never attend, but be participants in the discussion nonetheless. So, the location of the community lies not in physical space, but in the circulated texts and the participating minds. In other words it exists as the thought processes and perceptions of the participants and its architecture can be said to be textual. (The term 'structure' could be used here, but the popularity of 'architecture' in cyberjargon is precisely because of its suggestion of building a new world.)

This relatively old idea of a scholarly community readily fits a recent definition:

virtual communities [are] passage points for collections of common beliefs and practices that united people who were physically separated. Virtual communities sustain themselves by constantly circulating these practices [3]

Once such a community ceases to circulate texts it ceases to exist. It is possible for such communities to exist across time. Academic societies link past and present thinkers by circulating and encouraging the study of historical texts. Similarly a library could be considered a virtual community, or set of communities, because it brings together, by a classification system, like minds. What is new in the case of virtual communities is that the technology is interactive, in that I can modify or add to what I find there, can be in real time and is constantly accessible and accessed. I can access areas, or pages/networks where, although I may be unable to interact with whoever is there at the same time (I may even be unaware of the presence of anyone else) I can nevertheless leave a trace of my presence, by altering something, even if it is no more than registering on a counter. Some sites require and are set up for real time participation. Interaction is constant because there will always be someone on line. It may be that on the narrower definitions of community cybercommunities may be more fully to be counted as such than anything else because they are contained, not within a specific geography, but within a specific textual or visual architecture based on shared interests or goals. At the very least they provide a new and efficient way to keep scattered communities in contact eg. the international community of persons of Indian origin. There are numerous sites devoted to Indian culture and linked by hypertext.

There are many ways to communicate on the web and the type of communication format you choose will dictate the kind of persona that you can create and the weight of responsibility that you attribute to your actions. The following are some of the kinds of communities and communication systems found on the internet:

E-mail - personal communications; discussion groups; news updates; Journals.

Newsgroups -- unmoderated discussion and news postings, non-personalised receipt

Text pages/interactive sites/ homage sites/ commercial/ professional

Text-based communities -- Geocities -- highly organised, ethical codes, community leaders etc.

VRML -- walk-through participant construction, social environments (virtual cafés), game playing

E-mail is a faster method of textual communication which combines aspects of letter writing with the informality of a phone-call. Geocities, on the other hand, consider themselves to be cyber-communities, composed of "homesteaders" and complete with community leaders and codes of behaviour. So E-mail carries no general ethical implications (unless one is posting to a discussion list where 'netiquette' proscribes certain forms of offensive language). But to create a web page in one of Geocities neighbourhoods is seen as carrying a burden of responsibility.

It appears that in the role-playing VRML sites (or the text orientated muds) ethical responsibility is most changed, or irrelevant perhaps. However, do these sites fulfil the requirement of possessing a shared code? Each grouping will have requirements for the behaviour of participants and those that transgress may be excluded, but these rules may not be those commonly endorsed in real society. Completely new or alternative personae can be created and deployed because this is life lived in "cyberspace". Personae may never meet in flesh. So that a persona's sex can differ from that of the biological persona's. It is also possible to present oneself in such a way that one can appear to be a robot character, an illusion which allows eavesdropping since such characters are not consciously controlled by anyone after their creation. Such misrepresentation is always possible in any standard interaction but the form of cyberspace interaction, and the literature that describes it, encourages deception. If I write a letter, take a pen name or dress so as to conceal my identity, I must remain aware that whatever I do my bodily identity remains the same. But because web interactions encourage the belief that one's consciousness can be detached from one's body, and since that consciousness (or the projection of that consciousness) is what my identity truly is, there can be no deception. I simply reveal myself as that which my mind knows itself to be, and released from bodily limitation I may even manifest multiple possible selves. Thus there is no deception; only liberation.

The most distinctive feature of cyberspace, therefore, is its apparent realisation of the dream of bodily transcendence. The citizens of cyberspace enter the geography of the computer and let their imaginations live there. If this is conceived of as a realm of pure mind/imagination, then pointing out that cyberspace is not real 3D space, or that there is nothing different about its relationships, is mere carping. The difference is that cyberspace is an interface with the imagination. It may be that I only interact with imaginary creations but, whereas with daydreams it is only my own imagination, and with books and computer games it is a fixed portion of others imagination that I interact with, cyberspace has this special feature : it is not a pre-determined environment, but the outcome of the ever changing contribution of others' to my imaginative life mine to theirs. In short, it is an environment which is continuously constructed and deconstructed.

The interesting metaphysical question is: how far can the mind exist without the body? My suspicion is that the mind cannot truly exist without the body, not just because it needs the body to sustain it and the sense organs to feed it, but because mind is a product of the total functioning of the body. If so, cyberspace cannot be more than another form of imaginative escape and is thus no substitute for the real world. This not to say that experiences within it are not real in their emotional and imaginative import. It is merely to say that it is not a space I can inhabit to the exclusion of the physical world. The language used by those who inhabit this space has emotional but not ontic significance. And whilst within this context a different approach to ethics may be permissible and even necessary, such values cannot be translated into reality.

For instance, we could ask whether it is permissible for pornography to exist in this imaginative place. Afterall we cannot and do not police our imaginations. What is needed, as in the case of films, TV and video, is an answer to the question of how much of the imaginative experience is carried back into reality. One problem with cyberspace is that the images are scanned in so that real people are used for pornographic images, and cyberporn comes in a form that is difficult to keep away from the young.

A number of interesting questions are opened up by this brief consideration of virtual community. It is reasonable to ask what the connection is between the various personae I may manifest in my web interactions if the body is to be finally transcended. What could make all these me? It seems as if there is an implicit acknowledgement of the body in that what makes them me is that they are manifested by the one biological person. If you want to meet in the flesh, it is me you will meet. On the question of pornography the issue has already changed with the creation of idealised women in a variety of games; women programmed into the computer, not created as avatars by a biological person, male or female. Now we can also ask what objection we could raise to the use of such imaginative manifestations in pornography. No real person is subjected to any kind of abuse and they function merely as collective manifestations of a certain kind of imagination. If we wish to object we would need to show that the very act of participation somehow brutalised the personality making it more likely that the biological participants would carry their attitudes into the real world. The common-sense response is that we can all tell the difference between animations and real people. But the growing evidence is that not all of us can. The response that is made to cyberspace is emotional not epistemological. So that the question of whether the characters that I share this place with are real or not can only be answered by considering with what degrees of emotional force I respond to them.

What of the four claims with which I started? Will they hold up? It seems undeniable that whatever their effects in the real world, virtual communities do exist. There are people who spend large amounts of time logged-on and who lead emotionally stimulating and satisfying lives in cyberspace. Where you are and who you are biologically is irrelevant. Cyberspace does offer a life unavailable to people in other forms, but its communities do not function as communities in the way that is often claimed. You cannot live in cyberspace permanently; it remains a realm of the imagination only. This is not to say that it has no effects on real life, but these effects are dependent on the experiences brought back with us. And as with all forms of modern media, cyberspace may be changing our morality in ways that we do not yet understand. I leave open the question whether these changes are for good or bad. Only time will show us the answer. In the meantime it seems wise to take cyberlife seriously as a new and developing experience.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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Answer 4

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