Participants in this particular forum have constructed a sense of community in their online environmnet. It may be said that this was in fact inevitable as they are already an established community. BUT, the postings to this forum simply strengthen their sense of community, physical and virtual.
Bell (2001) talks about the emergance of social codes as a means of constructing a sense of community. Users of Bankeyfields are asked to regularly contribute to forums and blogs, it is almost like an unwritten rule of the site. The moderator seems to regulalry prompt people to give feedback on issues discussed. This will be a method of allowing the communication to flow and to keep the community online intact.
The users construct a sense of community by having a shared interest in protecting their own physical space and that of the others around them. As one of the posts to the forum says,
“Thanks for the info, do we need to inform the police about this as they have a zero tolerance on teenagers with regard to this sort of thing” (Bankeyfields, 2009)
It can be said that users constructed a sense of community from the off set by establishing this website, the community was already in place.
Tags: Ethnography mini project