I remember this 'community question' from ENG 101. It took me forever to nail down a definition that I was willing to stick by (read: felt that I could defend well fairly easily). This time, however, I'm ready. Maybe.
For a community to exist, there must be active communication between members who have a sense of group identity. A community must also have a structure of some kind. Size and location aren't very important. But, communication is key!
If members in a community do not interact in some way (preferably by sharing thoughts and ideas) then defining themselves as a group is impossible. If you never had any form of contact with anybody in this class (with the same going for everyone else) then the class would not be a community because it would be impossible to feel any real bond between yourself and your classmates.
Structure is less a requirement of community and more a result of human nature. Any time humans come together to form groups a heiarchy developes (government, for example).
That about covers the general idea I have of community. I might go into more detail later.
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yes, to elizabeth's dimension of individual identity and identity creation, you rightly add group identity. i like that.
and you introduce "structure" into our conversation and definitions. this is good, and it complements another of elizabeth's ideas, that of casualness. how are structure and casualness related? how is this structure manifest online? how limiting (or freeing) is any one community's structure.
good stuff.
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