Workshop access
Virtual communities
Briefing 05.03.98

As a permanent way of communication, the Internet permits the shape of virtual permanency, make communities. The links, which are created thanks to this particular define the real communities, to be characteristics, different from those that sketch out and consolidated. The birth of virtual communities is favoured by the possibility for those who show curiosity and conversation as a standard, of sharing thoughts, feelings, interests and culture. This new cheap and accessible way of communication enhances the relations between citizens who don't live very far away from each other and makes easier the contact between the members of the same cultural area, even more when the latter don't have solid basis (e.g. Catalan countries). For that reason this workshop is intended to discuss on the truthfulness of this characteristics and the immediate future of these ommunities.

Topics of the workshop:

• Shaping and consolidation of virtual communities: which way the user getsin touch with the

community and why he decides to stay in Social need covered by the community.
• Inhabitants of the community and the relationships between them (leaders,lurkers,

optimists…)
• Geographic nearness and the possibility that the virtual community becomes real.
• Netiquette and non-written rules
• Biggest and successful communities.