There is a constant struggle in an online community of identification. How can you identify with other people in an online community? And who is to say that they are who they say they are. These types of questions have come about in the past few years that revolve around the idea of an online community.
Howard Rheingold coined the word “virtual community”, and defined it as social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace. “Hagel and Armstrong in their definitive book on business related online community, Net Gain, suggested there are five elements that define community which include: distinctive focus, integration of content and communications, a valuing of member generated content, an openness to competitive information/access and a commercial orientation.” (White, Nancy ).
Defining an online community can be difficult; a basic definition is a set of users that use computer mediated technology to communicate with each other. For the most part, Flickr’s online communities have the same characteristics as any online community:
-There is a shared purpose -(focus on an interest, need, information, or service that provides reason for belonging to a community)
-There are people - provides a sense of belonging into a community
-Policies - Community guidelines that guide members’ interactions
-An understanding of a sense of rituals that in turn create social norms and expected behavior.
How do we create social norms in a virtual setting? There are no set rules defined for social norms, they just emerge out of any community. It has become expected to do certain things, such as introduce yourself when you join a group. In Flickr more specifically, it is an expected behavior to browse other members’ photos and tag them and comment on them. It is a way of introducing yourself to the group, and making you known. In this virtual community, you can’t walk up to someone and shake their hand, but you should view their profile and tag their photo pool. Although these are very different norms than in our personal communication, these are distinct expected behaviors in online communities that may become just as relevant to know.