''The Virtual Community'' is a 1993 book about

virtual communities A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities. B ...

, a member of the early network system

The WELL The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, normally shortened to The WELL or The Well, is a virtual community founded in 1985. It is one of the oldest continuously operating virtual communities. By 1993 it had 7,000 members, a staff of 12, and gross annu ...

. A second edition, with a new concluding chapter, was published in 2000 by MIT Press. The book's discussion ranges from Rheingold's adventures on The WELL,

computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated forma ...

and social groups and information science. Technologies cited include

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

MUD Mud (, or Middle Dutch) is loam, silt or clay mixed with water. Mud is usually formed after rainfall or near water sources. Ancient mud deposits hardened over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone (generally cal ...

s (multi-user dungeons) and their derivatives

MUSH In multiplayer online games, a MUSH (a backronymed variation on Multi-user dungeon, MUD most often expanded as Multi-User Shared Hallucination, though Multi-User Shared Hack, Habitat, and Holodeck are also observed) is a text-based online social m ...

es and

MOO A MOO ("Multi-user dungeon, MUD, object-oriented") is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time. The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses. One is to refer to th ...

Internet Relay Chat IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for Many-to-many, group communication in discussion forums, called ''#Channels, channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via instant mess ...

(IRC),

chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

s, and

electronic mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

s. Rheingold also points out the potential benefits for personal psychological well-being, as well as for society at large, of belonging to a virtual community.

External links

''The Virtual Community''
(Text of book on the author's site) Sociology books Books about the Internet {{sociology-book-stub