Cybercommunity and Modernity Why do people ...

Community On-Line: Cybercommunity and Modernity Why do people participate in cybercommunities? Extended Abstract Victoria Wang Centre for Criminal Justice and Criminology, School of Human Sciences, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP

Cybercommunities are online social spaces. They may be online chat systems based on text, or virtual worlds based on 2D or 3D graphics. They may be created for different social purposes, from gaming to dating to military training. The growth of cybercommunities is a notable social phenomenon, especially in the contemporary Western societies. In some more technically progressive cybercommunities, participants are able to re-create themselves, environments, situations and communities, realising all kinds of advanced human activities, making these environments into homomorphic projections of the real world. Following this, perhaps, the rise of cybercommunities has something to do with the modern world. The rapid growth of cybercommunities seems to suggest that they are able to offer more than some communities in the real world. What can cybercommunities provide for participants that some communities in the real world fail to cater for? In this paper, we introduce the possibility of using Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories of modernity to analyse the reflexive relationship between cybercommunities and the modern world, as well as the reasons behind some individuals’ participation in cybercommunities. We argue that in some influential theories of society, the modern world is interpreted as an uncertain place to live (e.g., Bauman 2001; Giddens 1991 & 1990). The uncertain world has driven many individuals to seek alternative life styles and cybercommunities may be perceived as possible options. There may be various possible reasons behind individuals’ interest in cybercommunities. These reasons may form a sociological terrain with two extreme polarities. At one pole, the cold scientific rationality of modernity and its structures and politics have generated an enduring sense of nostalgia for community as a source of security and belonging; at the other pole, a growing sense of individualism has induced a demand for environments where the emancipation of self could be achieved. The reasons behind some individuals’ interests in cybercommunities may depend on their individualistic interpretation of, and identification with, the conditions of modernity, self-identity and computer technologies. The interpretation and identification rest upon whether a person attaches greater value to his individual autonomy or to his very sense of ontological security, to freedom, experiment or, to belonging. In mapping this social terrain, two extreme cases are examined: the pursuit of modernity and the retreat from modernity. In the first part of the abstract, we establish the reflexive relationship between cybercommunities and modernity. We argue that cybercommunities are extreme products of modernity, exemplifying some characteristics of modernity. The formation and various aspects of cybercommunities may be understood as extreme manifestations of the co-construction of technology and society. The birth and rise of cybercommunities can be explained by the modern discourse of community. Many characteristics of postmodern communities can be found in cybercommunities. In the second part of the extended abstract, we turn our attention to the individual and argue that some individuals’ participation in cybercommunities may be interpreted as a response to modernity. On cybercommunity In the modern world, many transformative developments relating to postmodernism, globalisation and the Internet have challenged the concept of community in classical sociology and community studies. The discourse of community in the contemporary social and political situation, appears to be intimately related to an aspiration for belonging and a search for self-identity. With this in mind, an appreciation for cybercommunities as extreme products of modernity may depend on an understanding of theories of modernity, the modern discourse of community, as well as a notion of community that emphasise on a community’s supportive roles to individuals and its nature as a source for security and belonging. 1

Actually, modernity in itself is the subject of various theories, analysing it from different perspectives. A more detailed account of theories of modernity is provided in the full version of the paper. For our use, modernity is interpreted as a set of conditions that characterises modern societies, cultures, institutions and human activities. Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories are adopted as a set of analytical tools to provide a possible analytical framework. In the full version of the paper, we provide a full exploration of Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories of modernity and the advantages of choosing these theories. Drawing ideas from Giddens (1991 & 1990) and Berget et al. (1974) cybercommunities can be interpreted as extreme products of modernity. Cybercommunities are products of technology, which has made modernisation possible (Berger et al. 1974). Berger defines modernisatsion as “transformation of the world by technology” (Berger et al. 1974, p. 15). He considers technology and bureaucracy as the two primary carriers of modernity, which consists of “the growth and diffusion of a set of institutions rooted in the transformation of the economy by means of technology” (Berger et al. 1974, p. 15-16). In the past, technology was seen as undermining community by bringing about different forms of organised institutional orders (e.g, Berger et al. 1974). Contemporarily, “no discussion of community today can be complete without some consideration of the role that technology plays in reshaping social relations” (Delanty 2003, p. 167). Moreover, when the idea of cybercommunity was first introduced, it was seen as an example of technological change and innovation having the ability to turn around the social and cultural decay in contemporary society (Rheingold 1993). The modern discourse of community can be expressed as a coin with the loss of community on one side and the recovery of community on the other side (Cohen 1970). The loss of community entails the sentiment that the decline of the institutions of the Middle ages, the commercialisation of agriculture that came with the emergence of capitalisation and the decline in the autonomy of the cities as a result of the rise of the modern nation-states, led to the sense of the loss of community. If modernity destroys community, then it must be recovered in a new form. Contemporarily, the communal movement in pursuit of an alternative to modernity is often materialised in a retreat from modern society, and based on a particular concept of community. This kind of community offers a different model of social relations and institutional organisations from the normative framework brought about by modernity (e.g, the Kibbutz). In the full version of the paper, the modern discourse of community is discussed explicitly. We argue that the birth and rise of cybercommunity may be interpreted as a response to the recovery of community. Jones wrote “Crucial to the rhetoric surrounding of the Internet. . . is the promise of a renewed sense of community and, in many instances, new types and formations of community” (Jones 1998, p. 3). Cybercommunities exist in cyberspace, not physical place. No one actually lives in cybercommunities. In this sense, cybercommunities may be interpreted as symbolically constructed community of meaning: a conglomeration of normative codes and values that provides community members with a sense of identity (Cohen 1985). Anderson proposes that all communities are imagined since “in the minds of each [community member] lives the image of their communion” (Anderson 1983, p. 15). Rheingold (1993) and Baym (1995) argue that cybercommunity is a real entity that is given meaning by its participants and characterised by common value systems, norms, rules, the sense of identity, commitment and association. Reality is socially constructed, cybercommunities exist in the minds of participants; they exist because participants give them meaning. Williams’ research demonstrate that participants who “spend significant amounts of time interacting with others online, who live a large part of their lives in ‘virtual’ spaces, and who recognise that actions online have real consequences, much like in the offline world, consider themselves to be part of a community” (Williams 2006; emphasis in original). Actually, virtuality may be considered as a product of modernity, which ‘dis-places’ the individual and makes place more phantasmagoric (Giddens 1990, p. 140). However, phantasmagoric place that “shades off into indefinite time-space from the familiarity of the home and the local neighbourhood is not at all a purely impersonal one”, instead, intimate relationships can be sustained at distance (Giddens 1990, pp. 140-143). The idea may help to explain the imaginary aspects of cybercommunities (Anderson 1983), the demise of offline communities and the emergence of culture at-a-distance. The transformation of intimacy explains individuals’ trust toward non-face-to-face interactions brought about by disembedding mechanisms that have come to characterise modernity (Giddens 1990, p. 142). These abstract disembedding mechanisms are constantly displacing the individual and familiar contexts around the individual, and reembedding these in different contexts, where intimacy and abstract systems interact, connecting familiarity and estrangement (Giddens 1990, p. 142). With these in mind, participants’ attachment to cybercommunities is preciously brought about by such mechanisms of displacement that have transformed traditional notions of intimacy and trust. Cybercommunity seems to be akin to the postmodern idea of community without propinquity (Webber 1963).

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Instead of strong organic ties, postmodern communities are often communities of strangers (Turner 2001). The technologies of modernity have transformed the notion of community as face-to-face relations by introducing too many distances into everyday life. These distances, arising from mobilities make it very difficult for face-to-face community to be a social reality: families and friends are scattered around the world, and home and work may be separated by different localities (Gergen 1991). As a direction response, individuals are relying increasingly on other forms of communication to sustain their realities, values and agendas (Gergen 2001). Actually, mobility is one of the key features of modern social life (Urry 2000). Constructed by technologies, cyberspace is able to produce communities without propinquity by bringing together strangers in a sociality often based on anonymity. Actually, various characteristics of postmodern communities may be located in cybercommunities. Like postmodern communities, cybercommcybercommunities are reflexively organised: more likely to be chosen and more reflexive. Reflexivity, therefore, becomes the conscious questioning of social belonging (Lash 1994). Lash (1994) highlights the aesthetic sphere as the main location of reflexive community where a kind of groundless community exists. Marked by an aesthetic sensibility than symbolic codes, Maffesoli’s emotional community is characterised by “fluidity, occasional gatherings and dispersal”, and may be found in a proximity without space, in de-territorial groupings and in open networks (Maffesoli 1996, p. 76). Maffesoli (1996) too suggests that postmodern community is to be found in forms of association sustained by everyday life and informal friendship networks. Pahl (2001) argues that friendship is becoming increasingly important in social relations, even replacing family and kin relations. This argument may be used to explain the flourishing of cybercommunities that are not based on organic relations. For Maffesoli (1996), postmodern community has no foundation, no moral purpose, no project; it refers to nothing but the relations of sociability that constitute it; exists in temporary groupings in the flux of life; and creates new sociality. In such communities, the sense of sociality and belonging may be seen as sustained by the transformation of intimacy (Giddens 1990). In this sense, individual identities: as expressed in the relations between self and other in cybercommunities, may be seen as exemplifying the postmodernist thought about the notion of self. Many postmodern thinkers revealed the self as a constructed category (e.g., Elliott 1999; Foucault 1988). The self can be invented in many ways: it is a social self formed in relations of difference rather than of unity and coherence. For Foucault, it is the practices of the modern world and modern technology that produce a different kind of subject, which does not simply objectify and dominate the world through technology, but is constituted by this technology (Dreyfus 2002). Perhaps, cybercommunities may be interpreted as a product of such a subject. The self maybe less trapped in cybercommunities, yet new kinds of struggles of self-identity have appeared. The notion of created self has put more pressure on the ideas of familiarity and strangeness than ever before, both in terms of within the self and in the relationship between self and other. The strangeness captures the essence of the feeling of insecurity, contingency and uncertainty both in the modern world and in the identity of the self. The familiarity explains the sense of belonging and security that cybercommunities may provide for their participants. Perhaps, the emergence of cybercommunities fills the vacuum in contemporary society that has come with the opening up of culture to individualism. On Self-identity If the rise of cybercommunities is a direct response to modernity, then it is possible to related some individuals’ participations in cybercommunities to various divergent forces of modernity. Some individuals’ participations in cybercommunities may be interpreted as a double-edged response to modernity: retreating from the existing imperfect social world in the pursuit of a paradise, or pursuing an extreme version of modernity to experience fully, many characteristics of modern social order. However, regardless of the reasons behind some individuals’ participations in cybercommunities, the act of engaging in a context, which is often argued to be different from the existing contexts of the physical world, is profoundly modern. If modernity is associated with a quality of miracle that delivers individuals from the sufferings of hunger, disease, death, etc. (Berger et al. 1974), then to those who pursue modernity, cybercommunities may be seen as contexts that offer individuals equality, freedom and the opportunity to achieve a strong sense of self. Conversely, if modernity is understood as “a spreading condition of homelessness” (Berger et al. 1974, p. 124), then cybercommunities may be perceived as the promise of a new home. To understand the social terrain constructed by various reasons behind individuals’ participation in cybercommunities, we have deviced a map, in which individuals with disparate idealogical and pragmatic interests may locate themselves. This map of the social terrain surrounding individuals interested in cybercommunities is constructed using an analytical model with three ‘dimensions’, based upon the following three sociological concepts, namely, modernity, self-identity, and computer technology. Firstly, the concept of modernity refers to an individual’s interpretation of, and identification with, the conditions of modernity; secondly, the concept

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of self-identity refers to an individual’s perception and evaluation of the notion of self; thirdly, the concept of computer technology refers to an individual’s bond with computer technologies, and awareness of the computer’s technical capabilities. Each of these three properties is, of course, a sociological imperative. Combining these properties, it may be possible to make a model with which to analyse the social conditions of individual participants. The social condition of each individual is characterised by some degree, or measure, of these imperatives. Each property is in itself a spectrum with two polarities, indicating two extreme cases: the pursuit of modernity and the retreat from modernity. A full explanation of this map and an explicit analysis of it, are provided in the full version of the paper. Whatever this terrain may be, in the analysis, it will come down to a question about individuals’ self identities. In cybercommunities, participants’ self-identities are expressed via their created avatars, which can be a three-dimensional (3D) model, a two-dimensional (2D) icon, or a text construct, depending on the distinctive nature of a particular online environment. Giddens (1991) argues that the self is embodied and most individuals are absorbed and feel themselves to be a unified body and self. Moreover, the body is not only an observable representation of the self, but also inherently within the self. Following this, an avatar could be identified as a visual representation of the self, and named as the cyber body, performing similar functions as the body. Giddens wrote the body is “experienced as a particular mode of coping with external situations and events” (Giddens 1991, p. 56). However, at times, a state of disembodiment could be experienced, “in which the body appears as an object or instrument manipulated by the self from behind the scenes” (Giddens 1991, p. 59). The cyber body may initially be viewed as in such a state of being manipulated by the self. If this is true, then the reason behind having the cyber body - personalising, and intensifying the sensation that is derived from the pursuit of, or retreat from, modernity is defeated. Following this logic, perhaps, a sense of intensified pleasure, or alleviated anxiety can only be experienced with a precondition of embodiment between the self and the cyber body, since it is the self behind the computer screen that would experience the sensation. Assuming that the cyber body supposes to play a similar role as the body, then having a visual image as the cyber body is important in sustaining feelings of embodiment, since “where it [the body] is not visible at all, ordinary feelings of embodiment - of being ‘with’ and ‘in’ the flow of day-to-day conduct - become dislocated or dissolved” (Giddens 1991, p. 60). Following this logic, having a 3D image - a close visual imitation of the body, may be the most appropriate in performing the cognitive roles that the body plays as related to the self, achieving a strong sense of embodiment, as well as an intensified cyber experience. Giddens wrote “How far normal appearances can be carried on in ways consistent with the individual’s biographical narrative is of vital importance for feelings of ontological security” (Giddens 1991, p. 58). Perhaps, having 3D avatars in cybercommunities enables the observation of bodily activities, which is intrinsic to the continuous reflexive awareness of the self (Giddens 1991). In the full version of the paper, this suggestion is analysed explicitly, subjectively and intersubjectively. Subjectively, a 3D avatar may enable and facilitate better bodily observation and self-identification. The need to maintain certain degree of normalcy (Giddens 1991, p.127) as a protective cocoon may be generally applied across the spectrum of reasons behind individuals’ participations in cybercommunities. At one extreme of the spectrum, if the cyber body is created to facilitate the retreat from modernity, then having a bodily image may be viewed as a safe blanket, making the process of retreat less risky psychologically. At the other end of the spectrum, if the cyber body is created to facilitate the pursuit of modernity, then having familiar bodily images in cybercommunities as close to their real life images as possible may consciously bridge the cap between the participants’ real and virtual lives, thus enhancing the sensation that is provided by their cyber experiences. Some participants in cybercommunities may use photos/graphic images that they identify themselves with, as well as identifiable by others to represent themselves; whereas, others may use their real names, or names which are short forms or close imitations of their real names, to name their avatars. Moreover, having an observable 3D bodily image may be able to extend the sentiment of real world face-to-face interactions across time and space. The notion of a self is crucial in examining the core reasons behind cybercommunities’ appeal to some individuals. At one end of the spectrum, the context of cybercommunities may be the only possibility for an individual to feel a sense of complete detachment from the self, thus achieving a state of total immersion in cybercommunities, in the sense that he is able to create another self to transcend not only his physical, social identity but also his “being”. The desire of creating a self which detaches from the self completely has been significantly visible in literature since the Enlightenment. Cybercommunities provide opportunities for some individuals to re-create the “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” scenario. Intersubjectively, having a observable 3D avatar may facilitate social interaction and relationship building. It may be suggested that observation of others, as well as being observed by others, is the first step of social interaction, facilitating the building of relationship and emergence of community. At the same time, the emer-

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gence of community provides participants with a more stable context for social interaction, thus strengthens their individual self-identity. Berger wrote “[S]table identity can only emerge in reciprocity with stable social contexts” (Berger et al. 1974). Giddens considered that to be “able to join with others on an equal basis in the production and reproduction of social relations, is to be able to exert a continuous and successful, monitoring of face and body” (Giddens 1991, p. 56). Like real world communities, cybercommunities are contexts for social interaction, providing community members with a specific context, enabling them to search for their personal subjectivity through intersubjective interactions - the building of relationships. Perhaps, cybercommunities have provided a context for some individuals to experience pure relationship - a kind of relationship that is not fastened by external social or economic conditions, but based on commitment, intimacy and mutual trust (Giddens 1991, p. 88). Pure relationship exists only for what the relationship can bring to the partners involved; it is openly, reflexively organised, and on a continuous basis, in which the individual not only recognise the other but also affirms his own self-identity (Giddens 1991, pp. 89-98). Since participation in cybercommunities is purely optional. Pure relationships between members of cybercommunities exists for their own sake. In practice, the desire to find pure relationship may provide a better understanding as to why some individuals have cyber relationships, and even cyber marriages. It also provides some insights to the rational behind cyber dating services, in the sense that individuals get to know one another based on initial interaction in cybercommunities, then they may or may not decide to meet up offline, and build offline relationships. Individuals are not pre-judged by one another based on their real world physical appearances and social statuses, and this kind of relationship tends to be sustained upon mutual interests and experiences. Conclusion: This paper relates the rise of cybercommunities and the reasons behind individuals’ participation in cybercommunities to the modern world. It makes use of Giddens’ (1991 & 1990) theories of modernity as a set of analytical tools.

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