New TheoriesI have identified and i

New Theories

I have identified and included two possible alternatives in my research.

The first suggests that factors may differ by means of connecting to the community. Although unique attributes of communities may influence strength of sense of community (Brodsky et al., 2002), this theory suggests that what sense of community means to members may be different based on the community as well. In research on online communities using the four-factor model Blanchard (2004) found that there were two additional factors loading in responses: relationships and personal identity or identification of others.

The second alteration is more revolutionary and summarizes all of the foundational factors as a single framework identifying only needs while ignoring any reasons other than personal fulfillment that may add to sense of community. In it, the researchers identify responsibility as a second framework for building sense of community (Nowell & Boyd, 2010).

Most of these concepts are covered in some way with the original four factor theory. Relationships are directly addressed by Shared Emotional Connection. Identification of others falls under both Shared Emotional Connection and Membership. Responsibility is also a part of Membership: the willingness to sacrifice for the group.

Since the two factors of Identification/Identity and Responsibility are not fully covered in the original factors, I included them as independent factors during content analysis of open-ended comments in this research.

Current Findings

What I found in explanations of the overall meaning of sense of community (as opposed to later questions about sense of community within specific communities) is that while the four factors do account for the majority of responses, Membership and Shared Emotional Connection are by far the most commonly identified factors.

That the question addressed general, and not online, sense of community could explain why Identification/Identity did not show up as a factor. However, the invitation to the survey was only for players of World of Warcraft and mentioned their guilds. Some responses did mention gaming or online interaction in the general explanation of sense of community.

Responsibility was addressed directly in a small number of cases, which shows some support for it as a factor. However, using it as a second framework and grouping the other four factors under one topic of Needs would create a heavily unbalanced pair. It may be that the inclusion of responsibility suggested by Nowell and Boyd (2010) is only present as an aspect of sense of community in certain community types. Their work looks at individuals representing public health organizations who are working together regionally. This community has a moral or values-based foundation that other communities such as entertainment- or neighborhood-based communities may not have.

We can also see that the traditional factor of Influence was only minimally represented. This also ties to the Blanchard and Markus (2002, 2004) studies of online online news groups, which did not find support for the traditional influence factor. Due to the name of the current study, Sense of Community in a Mediated World, it is possible that the explanations for sense of community in this open-ended response were colored by thoughts of mediated communities.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, influence shows up as the second most important factor when identifying sense of community in other neighborhoods. However, it was not present at all in comments about the strength of participants’ own neighborhoods.

Influence played a very minimal role in responses about other online communities addressed in this study, but it was present … More on that to come in another post!


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