Abstract

The rise of the internet has changed the way people connect, removing the limitations of physical distance and allowing digital communities to form through global social networks. This essay explores how online spaces act as digital third spaces, places where people interact freely outside of work or personal responsibilities. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit provide open and accessible hubs for conversation and connection. These digital spaces also help individuals develop a sense of identity and belonging by allowing them to find and connect with others who share similar values, experiences, or interests. As these communities grow, they often inspire collective action, as seen in movements such as #MeToo and #BLM, where shared goals bring people together in support of social change. However, these same tools can also be used by harmful or extreme groups to spread their ideas. The essay also considers how data collection by social media platforms raises important questions about privacy and control. Overall, it reflects on how digital spaces shape community, identity, and action in today’s online world.

Introduction

The rise of the internet has led to a mass innovation of the range in which people may communicate on a global scale. Distances between person to person have essentially become nullified due to the networks made through the web and has fostered multiple digital communities through different media platforms. Furthermore, due to the sudden rise of the innovation and convergence of technologies, large-scale platforms that allow multiple social features, such as text messaging, e-mails, voice or video calls, or posting about your life upon a feed or a timeline, have also allowed the idea of digital and social networking becoming as one (Papacharissi, 2010). Social media can be defined as a network, or it may be defined as a community. But along the line, the ideas of a network and a community may converge. Human history is all about finding networks. They come with communication among a widespread group of people to serve a common or similar purposes working in tandem towards a desired goal, whether it be social, economic, radical or political. But with network, comes a sense of belonging and identity, the idea that through the connections made by necessity, it has garnered a sub-branch of small meaningful relationships in which an individual may find a sense of purpose (Delanty, 2018) through shared interests or ideas. This people driven, scale-free network allows an ecosystem that allows mass, peer and interpersonal communication that helps the way an individual shapes themselves on the internet and fine community. In a way, this has led many to believe in the presence of a third space among the virtual reality that is the internet, a place where an individual is free of personal or work-related obligations and may only focus on the social and contextual element of the space in question. But how do we exactly define a digital community, when often physical presence or contact with each other is, in most cases, intangible? Furthermore, how do we draw the line at how we may moderate what groups can form online, and the idea of pervasive awareness because of the collection and analysis of online data? Online communities, through social media and despite being often non-physical, can create digital third spaces, help individuals find a sense of belonging and empowers a sense of collective action. However, they also have potential to allow for harmful groups to come together for unity and collective action, and risk pervasive awareness through data collection.

Digital Third Spaces

Online communities often create a digital space for interaction in which individuals may find safe to communicate their ideas and values in a network with other likeminded people. Defining what a network and a community is will help us understand how they are interconnected, and how communities are fostered and happen on the internet.  A social network is a vast, interconnected system of groups made up of individuals that share or communicate upon common interactions, relationships or interests (Papacharissi, 2010). It includes the strongest, to the weakest connections, existing upon a certain hub to operate upon. In short, it creates a space for interaction that fosters a community. Oldenberg (1989) describes in his book a phenomenon known as the Third Space. Locations which facilitate social interaction beyond work or life obligations, fostering non-consequential, non-productive interaction while allowing potential new connections – theatres, shopping centres, libraries and gymnasiums. In recent years, the concept of a third space applies to many digital ‘hubs’ which networks and communities can come together and have a mode of interaction and communication. These hubs offer public discussion of current trends, issues or topics in which people interested can then interact and communicate with others of shared or conflicting interest. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the global lockdown, many people found ways of discussion and communication through platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Reddit (Cinelli et al. 2020).  Without a physical space, the digital reality became a hub for conversation, allowing groups to discuss how COVID-19 affected each other’s lives, and share experiences that affected people upon a global space. Therefore, it facilitated a community of people affected by the pandemic and lockdown by being able to still connect with other people despite non-physical contact and distance. Furthermore, these hubs also provide information and news of these topic to be consumed by communities affected by or interested in the content. Social media is also a mode of journalism and sociopolitical communication (Boczkowski et al., 2018). Articles, headlines and contemporary news is fed through the platform, and often allow for public discussion through the threads or comments section underneath the post. This in turn allows for individuals to interact with one another to share their opinions upon the subject and communicate with one another just like how “physical” third spaces operate.

Identity and Belonging

With online communities, an individual or group may find a sense of identity and belonging through the relationships and interactions that they experience. As stated before, online communities provide a space of interaction and communication between individuals and groups who share an ideal, passion, interest or label. Due to the nature of these spaces, individuals feel more welcome and open to discuss these with other people within the community, allowing them to identify as a part of it while recognising others in it. Feeling like a collective group supports this idea, as it also gives the sense of unity and camaraderie, with the community stepping up to support one of their own during a time of crisis. For example, the hashtag #GirlsLikeUs advocates for the support and rights of the trans community, particularly trans women (Jackson et al., 2017). It has been seen in multiple platforms, including YouTube and Twitter, while also being led by activists such as Janet Mock, a web magazine editor and trans activist. Social media platforms often allow for more outspoken views and shared ideals to come to light, especially through hashtags that categorise them into a certain community. In this case, trans women feel more connected through the shared unity of the #GirlsLikeUs movement, as the trans and LGBTQIA+ community have often seen discrimination, hate and persecution within history. Online communities provide a safe space where they may find other trans women for emotional support, advice and overall relationships that they may not find in their real day-to-day life due to the social stigma. Other examples of identity or belonging happening within social media are Indigenous groups using the internet to discuss and interact with other Indigenous Australian people. Urban indigenous people use social media such as Facebook to inscribe and express their indigeneity upon the online network, discussing the ideas of representation of their peoples and finding ways to reconstruct the idea of “authenticity” from fractured, diverse and distant views of what indigeneity is (Lumby, 2010). It instigates a sense of unity between what was once seen as distantly linking and weak relationships between Indigenous Australians, allowing accessible and easier discussion of other controversial topics, such as trauma and racism, due to the nullification of distance or physical contact/effort to find a safe space of interaction (Carlson et al., 2017). But with a gathering of likeminded individuals, also instigates a certain collective desire or action, especially towards something that they all agree upon.

Collective Empowerment and Action

Online communities have the potential and ability to muster up and empower collective action for various means and usages. Due to the highly interconnected and established identities that communities may put labels upon their members, that means acting collectively as a group can be utilised to forward a sense of radical action. Communities such as this have an overlying shared ideal or goal that connects them, and in the case of online networks, for example, use certain hubs as a medium for movements such as Online Activism (Ojala and Ripatti-Tornianen, 2023). Examples of online activism movements were the #MeToo movement, and the #BLM movement upon various social media platforms/hubs such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. These movements often involved spreading awareness towards injustices, discrimination and the oppression of targeted groups. The hubs are usually public, in which ideas can be shared through posts and then openly discussed upon through threads or comments underneath. This way the movement spreads through the interactions and relationships between individuals upon the app. Representing a certain identity for their presence, rights and acknowledgement is also a way for online communities to take collective action and be united through this shared goal of advocacy. Meikle (2018) addresses the representation of those with physical, mental or psychological disabilities, and through social media platforms such as Twitter. This was done through hashtags, public tweets and threads addressing social stigma when it came to the disabled community, along with rallying support through posts and allowing people to discuss it through the threads, mustering up a community which share the goal of advocating against misrepresentation and the mistreatment of that group. Public exposure of movements such as this can also help expand the community to have a larger social network of support and relationships, which help bolster communicative action in their cause. The interactions inside of the community, and the commonly shared ideals encourage more collective critical analysis of issues that they discuss and have concerns with, which they might not take radical action upon individually. In a way, communities often provide empowerment to individuals to act upon their ideas with the support of a vast network of individuals who share common ideas and beliefs.       

Consequences of Community/Pervasive Awareness

While it is apparent that online social media can help foster communities with senses of belonging and identity, the consequences of numerous communities being fostered on the internet can also harbour virtual groups that find reconstitution or revitalisation of radical beliefs, values or ideas that may develop into harmful collective action (Delanty, 2018). Radical religious and political groups, such as the Neo-Nazi movement, the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church, often use social media platforms to connect with other members of their community, culminating shared and fractured ideas, thoughts and topics towards a collective ideal or goal. Due to the concept of the digital third space which allows safer and more welcome views of interaction, this means that views such as racism, sexism, homophobia and religious-zealotism can be freely discussed and acted upon. The nature of the internet means that there is a level of anonymity when users access public discussions, which means that opinions not easily shared in real life can be expressed far more easily upon an accessible platform. What an individual identifies or personifies as can be radically different between both realities. Therefore, with online communities, these controversial views can be commodified if someone is connected or directly associated with the group in question. Furthermore, they can be easily acted upon without much reprimand or consequence. With public discussion comes free expression of opinion, no matter how controversial. Furthermore, Hampton (2015) addresses the idea of pervasive awareness which online communities may allow. The affordance of broadcasting, monitoring and collecting data which an individual or group leaves behind when using social media to interact, a digital footprint. Objectively, this allows a platform, like Twitter, to use the data to develop a sense of algorithm that allows each account to be personalised through sorted and categorised data allowed through analysis. This can be done through liked posts, frequently viewed topics or hashtags, or even more pervasive means such as analysing text messages and phone calls. This pervasive invasion of privacy is all to foster the continuous concept of unending consumption, to keep allowing content to be delivered in a quick and efficient manner (Boczkowski, 2018). it is important to know the consumers and their preferences so that they are consistently exposed to a never-ending stream of content to be observed, digested and discussed.

Conclusion

The rise of social media has allowed a vast and globalised social network, allowing individuals and groups to come together upon shared ideals, beliefs, values or opinions and discuss them through an accessible platform such as social media. Often, these platforms act as hubs that offer a safe, benign space for discussion, communication and general interaction regardless of distance or relationship between each other.  Through these spaces communities can form and fosters a sense of identity and belonging through likeminded groups of people. These communities can offer a sense of unity, connectivity, camaraderie and support regardless of distance or past relationship, as online mediums challenge the idea that strong links towards others require close vicinity to one another. As a result of this unity, it also empowers and allows collective action which can lead to movements such as online activism. However, social media, due to the open and public nature of these spaces allow more controversial and radical groups to connect and be more open to expressing their ideals without major consequence. Furthermore, social media platforms often collect and analyse data from users, which can be seen as sense of the pervasion and invasion of personal privacy.

References

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