Online news has gradually become an inherent part of many people’s every day life, with the media enabling a social and interactive consumption of news as well. Readers openly express their perspectives and emotions for a current event by commenting news articles. They also form online communities and interact with each other by replying to other users’ comments. Due to their active and signifi...

Introduction Literature Review Definition of "Virtual Community" Motivations to Join a Group Information Exchange Aspect of Virtual Communities Social Support Exchange Friendship Recreation Methodology Bulletin Board Communities Virtual Community Sample Selection Data Collection Survey Response Data Analysis Discussion Implications Additional Research Epilogue Footnotes References About the Aut...

Virtual communities are groups of people with similar interests who meet online and together act as a learning environment, place for social support, or as bodies for influencing public opinion. In this paper, the authors identify characteristics of a virtual community that influence its members to customize eservices provided to or received by the virtual community. The authors propose a theor...

In 2001, the UK was hit by Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) precipitating one of the biggest crises ever to affect the UK farming system. The crisis unfolded as a series of information and communication problems, from government to farmers and from farmers to farmers, with consequences for action in a time of crisis, social support, and the maintenance of community. What happens to a farming commun...

Virtual communities not only allow customers to share ideas and help each other, but also provide new venues for vendors to manage customer relationships. Two studies are presented showing how two companies, one in the software industry and one in the airline industry, have successfully enhanced their relationship with customers by strategically participating in virtual communities. Both compan...

How should platform firms engage with and invest in their online communities to shape knowledge contributions from community users? This is an important question because such user contributions are important drivers of technological progress and business value. We examine the effect of platform sponsors' investments in online communities on user knowledge contributions, by using finegrained lon...

Health virtual communities are a major channel through which health consumers share health-related knowledge and/or exchange social support with their peers. Because of the collaborative nature of health virtual communities, user participation is a critical factor for community growth and prosperity. In this study, we examine the impact of reciprocity on user participation within health virtual...

Knowledge sharing in communities has attracted much attention in the field of knowledge management in research and practice. In this paper we outline a view where the community lifecycle is supported at different stages. The central component of our framework is the community ontology SWRC+COIN that describes the typical structure of communities. We exemplarily show how communities in the acade...