Sense of Virtual Community-Maintaining the Experience of Belonging

E-commerce strategists advise companies to create virtual communities for their customers. But what is involved in establishing and maintaining virtual communities? This paper addresses two questions: Does a sense of community similar to that sometimes observed in physical communities also occur in virtual settings? And how is a sense of virtual community maintained? These questions are examined in an intensive study of an established virtual community called MSN. MSN members experienced a sense of community, but the dimensions of sense of community differed somewhat from those reported for physical communities in ways plausibly related to the differences between electronic and face-toface communication. The experienced sense of community in MSN was actively maintained through the social processes of exchanging support, creating identities and making identifications, and the production of trust. Again, these processes are similar to those in non-virtual communities, but related to the challenges of electronic communication. The findings suggest a process model of sense of virtual community creation and maintenance that is simpler and more powerful than previous theories.