Untitled - socium.ge

Networked sociability online, off-line 225also shifting interaction out of the public realm and into homes and otherprivate spheres of interaction?LOCAL AFFORDANCES OF THE INTERNETConcerns about the decline of community as a result of growing urbanizationwere only curtailed as it was accepted that supportive community relationscould be found outside the neighborhood setting (Wellman, 1999). While thisdid not preclude the possibility that people could form close neighborhoodattachments, it did suggest that the availability of a large, heterogeneous urbanpopulation allowed people to place similarity of interest over similarity ofsetting when selecting social ties (Fischer, 1975). The Internet radicallyexpands on this earlier trend, providing access to an even larger, more heterogeneouspopulation. However, there is a paradox in how the Internet shapessocial relations. While computer-mediated communication further reduces thefriction of space, it can also afford local interactions.The availability of a large, diverse urban population and, more recently, alarge, diverse online population, with subcultures that match every interest, isonly part of the explanation as to why people tend to develop few strongneighborhood ties. Access is equally as important as social similarity in determiningthe likelihood of tie formation. The pattern of social relations knownas “homophily” – the tendency for people to form social ties with those whoare similar to themselves – has as much to do with people’s desire to associatewith similar others as it does with a tendency for similar people to participatein common activities (Feld, 1982; McPherson et al., 2001). NorthAmerican neighborhoods generally lack institutional opportunities for socialcontact, and those institutions that do exist to promote local interaction (cafés,bars, community organizations, and so on) are in decline (Oldenburg, 1989;Putnam, 2000), and in many cases are absent from the suburban setting(Jacobs, 1961). There are simply too few opportunities for people to form localsocial ties.What the Internet offers – that existing forms of communication do not – isa way of overcoming barriers to local tie formation. As neighborhood commonspaces, such as parks and community centers, can be used to increase local tieformation and community involvement (Kuo et al., 1998), the provision ofvirtual common places can afford similar interactions. However, sophisticatedonline communities that require participants to engage in real-time conversationsare generally not the answer (for example, chat rooms, virtual worlds,and so on). Online communities tend to be populated by only a small proportionof total Internet users and often require specialized knowledge andcomputer skills. The Internet’s potential to afford local interaction comes from