As per instructiones, I shall once again attempt to define community without looking at my previous definition. Oi.
For a community to exist, there must be an organized exchange between individuals who are part of it. These individuals must be linked together either through one strong commonality, many different commonalities (like weak ties) or some fusion of these.
Their exchanges must be frequent enough for the members to feel some sense of loyalty or belonging to the community and the community at large must actively recognize a person as being part of it. This can differ from person to person depending on what types of exchanges occur and how many of the community members they have strong and/or weak ties with.
There must be a center, an individual or group of individuals who are somehow more important to the community than others, as well as people who fall on the fringes of the community. The people in the center can be those who have long been active members who contribute to the community in their exchanges and those on the fringes might be people who either haven't been members long or who don't participate very often.
Lastly (and leastly), communities are not all dependent on location. Online communities have shown us this, but it was true even before the Internet was popular. For instance, Air Force communities are formed by members of this military branch simply through being part of it.
Yes, I believe that covers it. I'm sure there are other aspects of community that other people might see that I did not, but this is all I can think of.
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a lot here to like. you link loyalty and/or belongingness with the frequency of exchange. i think this is true. katie described a simiiar interrelationship.
you also clearly posit that community does not have anything whatsoever to do with physical proximity or geography. we should talk about this, and a lot. it is the central question of our course. i like the firm position taken.
you say community has "organized exchange." my question: organized by whom?
you controversially state that there must be a center, members "more important" than others. hmm.... let's test that hypothesis. ants suggest otherwise, as do slime molds and cities. but then, slime molds and cities might not be communities by this defintion. good fodder for discussion.
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