Because we crave interaction so much and because it’s wired into our psyches, when a new technology comes along that can be used for interaction, we jump on it. The stone tablet, papyrus, movable type, the pony express, the telegraph, the telephone, fax, email, and now social media are all technologies that humans have employed to stay in touch. The social interaction that adapted the Internet to its current form was a type of virtual interaction started in the 1980s with the electronic boards, places where people could post and read messages. Boards morphed into Usenet (the forerunner of today’s social networks) and forums which started popping up in the late 1980s and 1990s, enabling people to “congregate” online and express their opinions on various topics.
That congregation that took place, in the virtual world as in the physical world, was around topics of common interest. My first inclination was to think of the online assemblages as online tribes. But they really aren’t tribes.
Tribes are hierarchical groups of people built around a common purpose. To achieve that common purpose, there must be a leadership, i.e. a hierarchy just as there is in a pack of dogs. (Please watch the Dog Whisperer on NatGeo for further information about packs, and for just plain fun.) Tribes and communities have much in common. Both have hierarchies. I was reminded of the hierarchical factor while reading the article, “Follow the Herd. How Behaviors and Stories Spread Through Online Crowds.”
The author, who claims to be a neuroscientist and is known only to the world as Patrick, opines that online communities such as those at Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com are not really “communities” at all. He says that they are crowds. Patrick reminded me that one of the factors that separate communities from crowds are that communities possess leadership and a common purpose. He’s right, communities do possess those qualities. Patrick maintains that online groups do not possess leadership and common purpose. He says that online groups are crowds. Yes, they are crowds. But I’m not so sure that he’s right on saying that they lack leadership and common purpose.
Join me in a future post when I take this concept a little further.
