wiAn inquiry into the role of weblogs in online community building

"The rise of the Internet as a medium of communication has prompted much debate about its effects on social interaction, both offline and online. The ever changing landscape of cyberspace (Gibson, 1984) - characterized by the rapid development and subsequent adoption of new technologies - has necessitated a perpetual game of catch-up on the part of academics interested in this area of study. Previous efforts at characterizing and analyzing virtual communities in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs) have been integral in laying the groundwork for future research on the effects of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) on social interaction. However, the emergence of new applications and technologies have brought the findings of the aforementioned research projects into question, since the communication processes (and patterns of social interaction) of any online group are highly dependent upon the technical settings of the particular mode of CMC (Liu, 1999)."