RUNNING HEAD: From counterculture to cyberculture: From counterculture to cyberculture: Virtual community discourse and the dilemma of modernity Dr. Sorin Adam Matei Purdue University August 2003 Under review at New Media and Society

Virtual communities are discussed as an expression of the modern tension between individuality and community, emphasizing the role the counterculture and its values played in shaping the virtual community project. The paper analyzes postings to the Well conferences, the on-line groups that served as incubators and testing ground for the term ‘virtual community,’ revealing how this concept was culturally shaped by the countercultural ideals of Well users and how the tension between individualism and communitarian ideals was dealt with. The overarching conclusion is that virtual communities act both as solvent and glue in modern society, being similar to the “small group” movement.

Virtual community, counterculture, modernity, discourse, individualism, sociology, small groups, open communication, Internet, Well

Word count (main text): 9,624

            Rare was the major modern communication technology that was not received with high hopes for social and political renewal (Czitrom, 1982, Lappin, 1995, Marvin, 1988). Two central visions characterize these expectations. One is the hope for greater individual autonomy and increased personal agency (Shapiro, 1999).  For example, early long-distance social interaction technologies such as mail order catalogues were seen as forms of empowerment for ordinary individuals (Boorstin, 1973).  On the other hand, dreams of social harmony and homogenization surround the birth of both 19^th century revolutionary communication technologies—the telegraph and the telephone (Marvin, 1988, Standage, 1998). A constant theme of discourse in both individualistic and communitarian visions, as noticed by Carey (1988) or Boorstin (1978), was that announcing the emergence of a Republic of Technology, where social relationships would become flatter, more transparent and personal while communities would be stronger and more effective. The mythopoetic origins of these tropes recede into the depths of modern subconsciouss (Carey, 1988, Czitrom, 1982), and they reflect the dialectic nature of the ‘great transformation’ (Polanyi, 1944) brought about by modernity: the rise of the individual simultaneous with an increasing yearning for rejuvenating community bonds (Taylor, 1989). The tension between individualism and community, specific to modern life, affected most aspects of public and private life, including modern communication technology (Nye, 1997).

            Although a good part of the story about how culture has shaped the rise of modern communication technology has been told, this is still a work in progress.  For some technologies—the telephone (Fischer, 1992, Marvin, 1988), the telegraph (Standage, 1998), the power grid (Nye, 1998), or the automobile (Nye, 1998)—we have excellent cultural histories. For others, especially the newer communication technologies, a lot of ground is still to be covered. While scholars studying ‘old technologies’ have succeeded in showing what specific social and cultural forces have shaped the emergence of the modern electronic universe, the efforts at clarifying the social and cultural resources of the collection of devices and connections known collectively as ‘the Internet’ are still at the exploratory phase.  With some exceptions (Abbate, 1999, Castells, 2001), the current cultural analyses of the Internet tend to be either polemical (Barbrook and Cameron, 1995, Borsook, 2000, Eubanks, 1999, Turner, 1999) or descriptive (Hafner and Lyon, 1996). What we need is a more solid, analytic and sociological framework, which can reveal what cultural and social forces, in what specific historical context have shaped the discourse surrounding the dual social promises—individualistic and community-oriented—of the Internet.

            The present paper is trying to fill in the gap by taking aim at an important discursive trope surrounding the emergence of the Internet, that of ‘virtual community.’  The goal is to untangle its cultural origins and social functions by placing it in socio-historical perspective and by revealing in what way this concept deals with the modern tension between individualism and communitarianism. The basic idea advanced here is that the socio-political hopes surrounding virtual community ideals extract their force and shape from the ‘high modern’ (Giddens, 1991) repository of visions provided by the social and cultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s known as ‘the counterculture.’ Although this connection was noticed before (Castells, 2001, Hafner, 1997, Seabrook, 1997), my analysis will go deeper than the metaphorical or formal connection found in the literature. With exceptions (Castells, 1996), the counterculture is mentioned as a ‘color item,’ as a peripheral factor that added spice and a certain amount of ‘fun factor’ to what ‘neophytes’ might consider ‘cold’ and ‘geometrical’ technologies (Hafner, 1997). Even Castells’ investigation (2001), which has shown that the very idea of ‘virtual community’ is in fact a representative symbol of the countercultural ethos, is too cursory to reveal all the major implications of the connection between the virtual community concept and counterculture. Seabrook (1997) has provided the most extensive and detailed analysis of the phenomenon to date, offering a good cultural, although not always scientifically rigorous, framework for understanding the countercultural roots of the virtual community phenomenon.

            Since the ‘virtual community’ topic is a vast one, the present paper resumes itself to discussing only one of its facets: the way in which it deals with the relationship between individuals and community. It will highlight how, being shaped socially and culturally by the counterculture, the virtual community concept has incorporated a number of contradictions specific to this movement.  This will be accomplished by analyzing the discourse about virtual communities found in the postings and literature generated by the members of the most representative virtual community,  the Well. This choice is justified by the fact that the book that has brought the term ‘virtual community’ to the public was written as a reflection on the social processes on the Well by one of its most articulate members, Howard Rheingold (1993). Also, the Well is known as one of the first self-proclaimed virtual communities and most active late countercultural organizations.

            In my analysis I will try to demonstrate that as a ‘second chance’ incarnation of the countercultural communal movement, the Well had to deal with a number of axial tensions: between self-expression and true community involvement, between ascribed and achieved identities, between intentional sociability and actional efficiency, and between strong and weak social ties. These contradictions put their imprint on the idea of virtual community, or at least on the concept that the Well put in public circulation (Seabrook, 1997).

            An important conclusion of this paper is that virtual community is a discursive and social subspecies of the counterculture and it reflects the fundamental modern tension between individualism and communitarianism. Virtual communities are related to a number of phenomena that also reflect this tension: the small group, weak tie, individually centered groups (Wuthnow, 1994, 1998), molded by an expressive and instrumental individualistic ethos (Bellah et al., 1985/1996, Yankelovich, 1981), which have generated social arrangements characterized by ‘networked individualism’ (Wellman, 2001). From this perspective, similar to the small groups movement analyzed by Wuthnow (1994) in ‘Sharing the journey,’ virtual community is not necessarily the solution for the social challenges of the late modern American society, but rather one of its symptoms (Fernback and Thompson, 1995, Lievrouw, 1998, Shapiro, 1999, Sunstein, 2001).  Embracing virtual communities can act both as a solvent and glue for modern society, making social commitments more flexible but also facilitating individual adaptation to these flexible social arrangements.

Virtual community: countercultural roots

The literature that talks about the role of computer-mediated communication in social life is rich in pronouncements about how communication technology will enhance the quality of modern social life. Computer-based communication networks are believed to have positive effects on social interactions, which are most frequently presented in socio-psychological  (Hiltz, 1984, Hiltz and Turoff, 1978, Kiesler et al., 1984, Negroponte, 1995, Rheingold, 1993) political (Berman and Weitzer, 1997, Braman, 1994, Doctor, 1991, Doctor, 1992) or sociological terms (Smith, 1992, Watson, 1997).¹

            Why do these expectations sound appealing? What historical and cultural precedents made the idea of cyber-sociability interesting to the public? A possible explanation for the diffusion of this vision is the fact that the literature discussing it plays on the expectation, sometimes assumed, sometimes explicitly expressed that computer communication entails a new social covenant, which will solve the major conflict between individual self-realization and  community constraints, specific to modern society. This trope, a recursive one in modern intellectual history, was most recently revived as the dream of creating social groups  through computers networks that can be seen as virtual or on-line communities, where both individuality and communal spirit can be preserved or even enhanced. This vision, first articulated by activist-analyst proponents (Barlow, 1994, 1996, Hauben, 1995, Hiltz and Turoff, 1978, Horn, 1998, Rheingold, 1987, 1993, Rushkof, 1994, Schuler, 1996, Watson, 1997) purportedly describe a new and superior form of human association, (Horn, 1998, Rheingold, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, Rushkof, 1994, Smith, 1992, Watson, 1997). The main appeal of the new social compact is its purported capacity to foster more authentic and deeper social involvement, while being deeply egalitarian, individualistic, less prone to prejudice and more emotionally satisfying.  These characteristics are better fostered on computer networks because cybermediated communication allows, through its very technical characteristics, more freedom of expression, increased efficiency and wider access (Hiltz and Turoff, 1978, Rheingold, 1987, 1991).

            Although not rejecting the proposition that on-line communication environments can and do foster social groups that display community characteristics—group sanctioned identities or jargons, norms, strong personal relationships (Baym, 1998, Jankowski, 2002, McLaughlin et al., 1997, Parks and Floyd, 1996)—the present paper starts from the premise that virtual community is a term that has both descriptive and normative (prescriptive) connotations. Those of descriptive nature cover the obvious reality that people use the Internet for various social purposes, of which reinforcing pre-existing community-oriented social and spiritual resources are probably very important (Baym, 1998, Calhoun, 1998, Castells, 2001, DiMaggio et al., 2001, Doheny-Farina, 1996, Hampton and Wellman, 1999, 2000, Howard et al., 2002, Katz and Rice, 2002, Neustadtl and Robinson, 2002, Putnam, 2000, Wellman and Gulia, 1999). As Calhoun aptly put it ‘the Internet mainly makes it easier for us to do some things we were already doing and allows those with the resources to do some things that they already wanted to do’ (Calhoun, 1998, p. 382).

            In addition to the descriptive nuances, the term virtual community also incorporates prescriptive ones, which suggest that virtual communities are an evolutionary step in the history of sociability, solving the conflict between autonomy and conformity, and that their ontology is quite different from that of older social formations (Barlow, 1994, 1996, Rheingold, 1987, 1990, 1993, Watson, 1997). The prescriptive connotations were attached to the concept during its forging in the intellectual furnace of the 1960s-1970s cultural revolution, when the main rhetorical resources fueling the virtual community vision were created.

            The connection between techno-communitarian activism, especially during the earlier phases of the computer revolution, and the counterculture was noticed quite early, especially by Roszak (1986, 1994).  His views are important because he is also one of the scholars who has most precisely defined the counterculture (Roszak, 1986, 1994, 1995) as the social and cultural project covering the ‘underground,’ anarchistic movements of the sixties whose main aim was to reconstruct the social order through novel technologies, human experiences, and social relationships (Bernice, 1981, Roszak, 1994, 1995, Rushkof, 1994, Veysey, 1978).² The counterculture is probably better known for its ‘communal’ experiences—especially the hippie communes and the transcendental religious movements. Roszak (1986) demonstrates quite convincingly that these movements served as intellectual and sociological templates for some of the most significant Bay Area circles of innovation responsible for the emergence of ‘personal’ computing: Resource One, The People’s Computer Company, the Homebrew computer club, or Community Memory (Freiberger and Swaine, 1999, Levy, 1985, Roszak, 1994).

More recently, several other authors have noticed that not only the broad idea of ‘personal computing’ originates in the counterculture but also some more specific techno-social concepts, including that of ‘virtual community.’ Among them is Castells (2001, chapter 4), who emphasizes the fact that the forum most responsible for its invention and diffusion, the computer conferencing system the Well, was primarily a countercultural organization and that the ‘virtual communitarian’ movement would’ve been impossible without the countercultural emphasis on self-directed networking cultivated by the Well members. He makes a strong point about the fact that the culture of the Internet was initially shaped by central countercultural values, such as self-expression and individual agency. Pippa Norris also advances the hypothesis, supported by some empirical evidence, that ‘post-materialist’ values generated by the counterculture, such as individualism, had a direct impact on the new ethos of on-line groups (Norris, 2001, chapter 10).

Neither author, however, delves deep enough into the significance of the relationship between the counterculture and the social ideals—especially those related to ‘virtual community’—promoted in the name of the Internet by various actors and movements. Their position is that while the counterculture was present somewhere in the mix, its voice and long term consequences were drowned out by other, external forces. Although the Internet today, as the countercultural movement itself, are very different from what they used to be, mutated as they were by mass use and by commercialization, the significance of their connection is far greater than historical.

Despite of commercialism, the virtual community dream survives in many projects and visions related to the social, economic and political potential of the Internet. One of its points of attraction is the fact that it deals with a very important problem of modernity, that of constructing a new sense of community, where individuality is not repressed, but cultivated. Virtual community discourse talks a language that revolves around values such as self-expression or personal freedom and is infused with the desire to change one’s identity according to individual, not collective demands (Castells, 1996, 2001, Shapiro, 1999), which are perennial modern issues, unlikely to disappear very soon.

The appeal of these values and desires is very powerful in the contemporary Western world, a complete description of their configuration and a good assessment of their power of attraction being offered for the American context, by Bellah et al. in ‘Habits of the Heart’ (1985/1996) or by Yankelovich (1981). Thus, the popularity of the virtual community ideal can be better understood by looking at the way in which its terms overlap with those of the ethical and cultural vocabulary found in current use in the American society at large.

This overlap can be gleaned from the similar manner discourses about on- and off-line groups talk about social values and ideal social relationships. In both discourses the emphasis is on ‘open communication. ’For example, the Internet and its component technologies (e-mail, newsgroups, chat facilities, on-demand media, homepages) are usually seen in the literature about (Coate, 1992, Rheingold, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, Seabrook, 1997), or published on the premier virtual/countercultural community, the Well (Well, 1985-2003a, b, c) as revolutionary methods of communication because:

1. The non-hierarchical and socially ‘transparent’ structure of computer networks generates an environment of ‘open communication’ where freed from the social masks of class, gender and race, which model face-to-face interaction, people are more likely to express their authentic emotions and concerns. Taking advantage of the fact that identity in computer mediated communication environments can be hidden or manipulated, social actors can explore and express unknown facets of their personalities. In the process, emotional involvement can be deepened, expressive abilities and personal freedom enlarged.

2. Such ‘open communication environments’ are also characterized by the users’ ability not only to consume but also to produce information, which eliminate the middlemen in social, political and cultural life, flatten social hierarchies and enlarge social freedom and equality, at the same time. Computer mediated communication users having more access to information will be better motivated to participate in social and political affairs.

            At a first glance these arguments seem to naturally spring from observing and revealing the nature of computer technology, which is more flexible and decentralized than the broadcasting model of communication. However, at a closer look one can distinguish the marks of a larger cultural ‘meaning system’ (Wuthnow, 1976). Ideas such as ‘open communication,’ increased individual agency or disintermediation are all based on more fundamental beliefs organized into pattern of thought specific to the counterculture. The counterculture was an answer to the modern dilemma: should the rise of the individual come at the expense of organic community ties? Its answer was ‘no’ and the solution it offered was model of social interaction emphasizing the role of ‘appropriate,’ or using a term of the times, ‘convivial’ information technologies (Felsenstein, 1995, Illich, 1980).

            According to the countercultural vision, we can break down social isolation of modern individuals and rebuild community by taking advantage of new communication technologies. We can do this by starting from the premise that communities are in effect networks of information exchange (Nelson, 1987). The conduits through which this information is circulated and distributed have the intrinsic power to create or unravel community. According to Felsenstein (1993, 1995), one of the founding members of Community Memory, an early countercultural bulletin board and probably the direct precursor of self-conscious ‘virtual communities,’ if one succeeds in establishing a more manageable system of communication, where every participant has equal access to the means of communication, and personal control over it, the social system sustained by it will become more ‘communitarian,’ will make people want to connect to other people. These beliefs were largely shared in the era, as a number of activists and players of the time have later testified (see Hauben (1997), Nelson (1987) or the November 1984 special issue of Creative Computing).

The capacity of ‘convivial communication technologies’ to generate communities resides in its ability to foster ‘open communication.’ This has several connotations. At the most obvious and intuitive level the argument affirms an obvious fact: that computer networks, being decentralized, are more easily accessible and harder to control. At a more symbolic and cultural level, however, such systems of communication are considered to be ‘open’ because information can be transported through them in absence of social markers.  The anonymous nature of on-line communication strips away all that hinders free-flowing communication in face-to-face situations: dress codes, skin color, age, etc. This argument, although apparently ‘technical’ and ‘common sense’ has a clear ‘elective affinity’ with the countercultural belief  that shedding all external signs of social differentiation and disposing of social and communicative conventions and codes (in speech, clothing, or manners) facilitates social equalization and self-realization (Kanter, 1972, Miller, 1991, Veysey, 1978). Felsenstein (1994) remembers that his idea of creating tools for ‘convivial’ electronic communication for the Community Memory project came from his direct experiences with the ideology of the time (Illich, 1980), crystallized by the Height-Asbury atmosphere. The hippie environment he made reference to, as is well known, had emphasized the need to eliminate ‘hang-ups,’ such as dress and communication codes, as a precondition for equalizing social interactions and for liberating the self. Through elective affinity, Felsenstain’s understanding of the idea of ‘open communication’ aligns itself with the belief that, in order to be emancipatory, the social contract should be as unmediated as possible.

From a broader perspective, Felsenstein’s and other 70s cyberactivists’ vision borrows from the central repository of images generated by the countercultural ‘consciousness reformation’ (Wuthnow, 1976) or ‘expressive revolution’ (Bernice, 1981). This is dominated by the belief that to solve the dilemma of modernity ‘revolutionizing the self’ comes before revolutionizing society. In distinction to previous anarchist dreams, which resumed themselves to redistribution of external resources and power, the counterculture has proposed a more radical project, which envisaged a total reconstruction of human consciousness and interpersonal human relationships as preconditions for any future social revolution (Bernice, 1981, Veysey, 1978, Watts, 1998). In essence, the counterculture saw social revolution as nearly impossible until internalized oppressive patterns of culture that shape people’s most profound sense of self are destroyed or modified (Braunstein and Doyle, 2002, Nelson, 1987, Watts, 1998).  Thus, any ‘external freedom’ project was linked to an internal-psychological openness ideal.

            The counterculture has found the best tool for opening up the self and society at large in ‘open communication.’ This is communication that is spontaneous, free, unhindered and self-expressive (Veysey, 1978). Its goals are to share the joy of discovering and developing the ‘true’ potential of the self. Open communication is communal and individualistic at the same time, reflecting what Veysey (1978) calls the paradox of counterculture, where the individual and community are concomitantly developed.  In countercultural groups personal and group identities can be merged through a process of communication that transcends conventions and is reduced to exchanging expressive ‘vibes’ between individuals (Bernice, 1981, Wuthnow, 1976).  These exchanges are aesthetic and emotional in nature. The practical implication is that the more spontaneous and more self-expressive the social interaction, the less constraining and freer the group and the fuller the communal experience (Bernice, 1981). This is a social ideal that focuses on the need of ‘communicating’—i.e. expressing oneself spontaneously and immediately—as a terminal value (Rokeach, 1979), as an ideal final state.

            As products of a simultaneous yearning for self-expression and for communal experience, countercultural communities present a number of contradictions. A central one is that between the two core values intentional communities are trying to foster: individualism and strong community ties. The first one, that of self-realization, also involves a mystic egalitarianism: each act of self-realization leads to a personal truth that is unique and probably incommunicable,  thus each self-actualized individual is equal and profoundly different from the other members of his or her ‘community’ (Watts, 1998). This means that in the process of communication/expression intentional communities foster, no exchange participant should be more or less valued than another and that communication should be released from the fetters of valuation and judgment; since all utterances should be the same, none should be worth more than another (Bernice, 1981). The ‘secondary effect’ of this ‘mystic egalitarianism’ is that the individualistic premises of the countercultural mindset will be made into the keystone of countercultural communities. Individuals whose expressive experiences are equal due to their incommensurability live in worlds that are, in the end, incommunicable and sovereign.  The state of self-sufficiency precludes strong ties because there isn’t much common ground, other than respect for each other’s individuality, to build a commitment on. Instead, weak ties, of tolerance and accommodation, will arise and the very idea of community will be profoundly transformed.

The Well as virtual community and its cultural contradictions

The open and self-expressive communication/community ideals, and their contradictions, are also prominently present in the discourse about virtual communities found on one of the most famous early ‘virtual communities,’ the Well.  This computer bulletin board and conferencing system was created as an electronic commune by countercultural activists and was run and managed by former hippies,³ mainly for the countercultural population of San Franscisco Bay area, especially for the followers of the Greateful Dead band.  Both users and managers brought with them a vision of community and communication which emphasized unhindered freedom of expression—the Well’s motto ‘you own your words’ can be seen as a variation of the famous sixties dictum ‘do your own thing’—which made the Well a place of intense verbal participation, emotional openness and often intense conflict  (Hafner, 1997).

The virtual community vision that has emerged on the Well is of crucial importance because the way in which we discuss about virtual community today is heavily influenced by how one of the most prominent Well users, Howard Rheingold, made it known to the mainstream public. The connections between countercultural ideals and virtual community ideas are not always easy to detect on the Well, because the rhetorical registers on which the two vocabularies favor are quite different. What in the counterculture was a style of interpersonal interaction has later become on a ‘rationalized’ socio-technological ideal.  Yet, analysis of some illustrative documents produced by the members, managers and chroniclers of the Well shows that the virtual community rhetoric generated on the Well is infused with the contradictions  that characterize the countercultural sociological project in general, and that the ideal of ‘open communication’ and its ambiguous role in making/unmaking community is also present here.  

In a number of programmatic postings to the ‘virtual community’ conference (Well, 1985-2003c) dedicated to the issue: ‘Is the WELL a community?  How so?  Or, why not?’ the countercultural ideal of self-actualization and self-expression is clearly stated, although in a tensioned relationship with the other goal of the Well, community and conviviality. In fact, the running theme throughout more than 500 postings, spread over a period of several years, is: how can community be defined in such a way that individuality is not suppressed? There is no definitive answer to this question, but the tension is usually solved in favor of preserving or emphasizing the individualistic term of the equation.

A representative posting proposes a definition for virtual communities that invokes the open communication ideal as a bridge between individuality and community.

XXX (xxx)⁴ Sun 01 Mar 1992 (11:01 PM) There are many definitions of community - some of which have been described above - but the one _I_ find most meaningful (and, probably, most difficult) comes from the book ‘A Different Drum’ by M. Scott Peck.  He describes community as a group of people who have _chosen_ to ‘communicate honestly with each other, and whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure.’  A group that shares joy and pleasure as well as sorrow and pain. […] The most succinct thing I can say about it is that true community provides a place for knowing myself (and others) and making helpful changes in my lifestyle/behaviors (Well, 1985-2003c). 

            The terms of this definition are strikingly similar to those used by the those used by Bellah et al. to describe one version of the post-countercultural ethos, the  ‘expressive individualistic’ one (1985/1996). Central in both visions is an emphasis on emotional support and ‘open communication,’ beyond ‘masks of composure,’ where authenticity and self-expression of feelings replace social conventions. In addition, the Well user’s declared goal for participating in communities of any kind are self-knowledge and self-adjustment, which are central individualist values. Interestingly, and revealing the contradictions of community building in a countercultural context, this user mentions in the second part of the posting that she does not believe that the Well meets even her relaxed definition of community, this forum being, in her view, too cliquish and conflict ridden to be a ‘real’ community. This highlights clearly the difficulty Well users had in defining and sustaining a common understanding of the Well as a ‘community,’ and their tendency of falling back on the individualistic benefits of this social environment.

Another way of appropriating the concept of community and aligning it to the countercultural environment specific to the Well was to attach a strong subjective, personal understanding to the term. In one of the more succinct answers to the question ‘is the Well a community?’, Howard Rheingold himself, acting as a Well user, emphasizes the idea that community is ‘what matters to me,’ which provoked the following repartee from a fellow user:

Howard Rheingold (hlr) Wed 19 Feb 1992 (03:45 PM): […] *I* find a community here for myself, and I don't believe that it is necessary for everybody else to agree for my sense of my community to be valid. […]

YYY (yyy) Wed 19 Feb 1992 (07:11 PM) Right--the fact that *you* find a community here does not mean that the WELL itself, alone from your perception, is one.  In other words, the medium stands alone.  What people do with it is highly individual (Well, 1985-2003c).

This exchange, which is only one of the many dedicated to the issue, highlights the inherent tension between individualism and communitarian values, which became apparent to Well users when they tried to define their on-line group. This is also present in John Coate’s (one  of the early managers of the Well) discussion of the representative ethos found on the Well and in virtual communities, in general. In a document widely circulated on the Well and on the Internet Coate (1992) programmatically affirms that on-line environments are naturally prepared to embrace individualists, of ‘electronic frontier’-kind who ‘are not by nature team-players’ and who ‘work for themselves […] possess great awareness and concern about their rights as individuals [and are] outspoken and articulate’ (Coate, 1992). Their communities (i.e. ‘virtual communities,’ and emphasis should be put on ‘their’) are subjectively-defined interest groups, the result of formal and self-beneficial agreement:

I like to say that if you think you are in a community you probably are, and if you don't, you aren't. Online, this sense of community is far less obvious than it would be in a small town or a church community. In fact, it only exists as a commonly-held, ongoing agreement of the participants who make it be true *for them.* Ultimately, all communities are a set of agreements among the people and in any community (and especially these days when many neighbors hardly know each other), one can always have strong or weak involvement with the group. But the online environment lends itself well to a person who wants to interact online, follow rules, observe protocol and etiquette, and still being completely disengaged from any sense of belonging to a community (Coate, 1992).

Coate’s vision is one of communities made for individualists and sustained by their social and intellectual resources. The emphasis is on individual autonomy and self-interest, which, again, redefine community as a subjective entity to be evaluated in terms of  ‘what matters to me.’ This reinforces the idea that if virtual communities are to solve the tension between individuals and communities, this should be done in favor of individuality.

This type of thinking continues throughout the Well postings to the virtual community conference, which make allusion to tropes and values borrowed from the counterculture, illuminating how the fundamental contradiction of countercultural communities becomes an inherent contradiction for this archetypal virtual community, too.

For example, community is defined in terms of personal payoff: ‘ZZZ (zzzzz) Wed 19 Feb 1992 (10:31 PM) If a community is something to have one's life enriched, then the WELL is a community’ (Well, 1985-2003c). Another user, one of the early managers of the Well and former member of The Farm, Stephen Gaskin’s Tennessean ‘intentional community,’ using a countercultural ‘organic’ imagery affirms:

QQQ (qqq) Tue 25 Feb 1992 (09:44 AM) I do not believe that one has to cop to being a ‘member of a community’ for one to actually be a member of a community.  Being a member does not obligate one to act in any certain way except to participate in some interaction.  One certainly does not have to give up one's autonomy to be a part of a community any more than the fern by the pond has to do anything special to be a part of the pond's ecology (Well, 1985-2003c).

            He is echoed by a Well members who embraces an explicit counter-cultural belief: the main role of self-respecting virtual communities is to cater to their members’ need to remain themselves. Rules and norms are the end of any community:

VVV (vvv) Tue 25 Feb 1992 (11:01 AM) My notion of a community has something to do with the idea that it is freely and voluntarily formed, and that once a member, one doesn't need to alter one's behavior much in order to remain a member. That is, the person who consistently rants is no less a member than the constantly nurturing one: both contribute a part of themselves to the mixture that becomes the community. To the extent that rules are imposed (and my own impression, reinforced by brief excursions to other networks is that the WELL is largely free of rules), the community loses its vibrancy (Well, 1985-2003c).

            The same Well user further elaborates on the potential such an ideal can have in generating community. His conclusion is that the Well, and virtual communities in general, are broken mirrors, reflecting not a reality greater than the sum of its parts but the unique individuality of their members’ selves:

VVV (vvv) Tue 25 Feb 1992 (11:01 AM) Another point which may or may not be relevant: it seems to me that the WELL functions as a mirror to each of its users. It's clear that the person whose postings consist chiefly of flames, for example, looks at the WELL and denounces something he sees there, but in fact what he sees is his own projection, and his frequent denunciations chiefly reveal his poor self-image. Just as, to cite another example, the person who posts only supportive and nurturing comments may be mainly displaying his own hunger for nurturing. One thing I like about the WELL is the openness with which people reveal how they see themselves in the mirror (even if they don't agree that what they see in the WELL is a mirror) (Well, 1985-2003c).  

These ‘personalized’—’community is what the term means to me’—and ‘possessive’—’this is my community’—definitions, sometimes noticed in the literature dedicated to on-line groups (Jones, 1997), reveal a clear tension between individualism and communitarianism broadly defined. This tension is not just covert, implied in the discourse, it was in fact overtly noticed by an ‘outsider’ Well user, a British science writer who never felt welcomed on the Well and who rejected the idea that the Well, or any computer mediated group, could be a community, precisely because they emphasize too heavily self-expression and individualism:

CCC (ccc) Wed 04 Sep 1991 (08:28 AM) […] My overall impression is that the Well is by no means ‘the community’ it claims to be.  There are, apparently, something over 3500 people supposedly involved here.  So why is it that only a small handful of them ever post anything?  Go into any conference at random, and you'll see the same names time and time again, mercilessly and monotonously trumpeting their views.  It's like walking into a small-town bar, where the locals have ways of making it plain that they'd sooner you weren't there.  ‘Try posting something’, is the expected sympathetic advice to a newcomer.  Well I tried it, in the Science conference, where a debate about homeopathy is raging.  ‘Prove that it works!’ cried the Antis, ‘show us the references!’  Since I've written a book about it, I left a polite posting, complete with references & abstracts.  No reaction.  The debate continued to storm around me, prejudices healthily intact.  I left another message, and another.  Still nothing.  I began to understand how dog turd on a pavement feels on a hot afternoon.  […] The Well seems to be all about self-expression, not communication. Expression is a solitary activity - like shouting in the forest, perhaps I should say screaming into the electrovoid.  I have a picture in my mind's eye of the Well - actually, of about fifty little wells - each one sunk deep into rock; each one perfectly insulated from every other one; and at the bottom of each, a person with a keyboard, furiously and fruitlessly hammering away (Well, 1985-2003a). 

This posting has attracted a long series of repartees and comments, in many instances the members admitting that the Well fell short of its communitarian ideal. In this, and many other exchanges on the Well the individualistic and communitarian visions of the Well, vigorously clash revealing its fundamental contradiction.

Studying the Well as a participant observer, Seabrook (1997) adds to the picture supplementary details. He offers an in depth description of the way in which the countercultural demand for self-expression engulfs the declared ideal of harmony, how community spirit is drowned by self-absorbed competition for attention, and how conviviality is soured by hazing rituals. He suggests that core components of the virtual communitarian discourse, emphasizing a social valuation of the self, create the premises for social groups that are unstable, torn apart by conflict, fragmented and parochial.

Seabrook (1997) notes that although the virtual community ideal that ostensibly animates the Well is one of social equality, the participants are divided into insiders and outsiders. Echoing the observation of the British Well user mentioned above, who complained of exclusionary behavior on the Well, Seabrook notes that the Well is a collection of single-issue conferences, each dominated by an exclusive clique and each requiring from its members a continuous effort to prove their originality and ‘authenticity’ of feeling and ideas. Acceptance is difficult, and as with all exclusive groups involves the inevitable hazing ritual. In his case, hazing was emotional, his work being mercilessly criticized by older members who do not refrain from ad hominem attacks. For example, one of the Well readers of his articles published in ‘New Yorker,’ commented in response to one of them: ‘Sounds like he’s a chucklehead and will be rightfully driven from the net. In fact, I’d like his e-mail address *right now* myself. I’ve got this pent-up hostility—oh, 45 years’ worth—I’d like to do something with :-)’ (Seabrook, 1997, 170). After some exchanges, Seabrook is recognized as “one of ours,” his affiliation with ‘New Yorker’ magazine being probably a major opinion-swaying factor. The finality of this process, however, is admission to what Seabrook realizes to be an elitist group. Ironically, Howard Rheingold acknowledges the existence of these hazing rituals (although never mentioned in his book) when as a Well member gives Seabrook this piece of advice: ‘It's an initiation ritual, John Seabrook. Stick around and help us dump it on the next guy. ;-)’ (Seabrook, 1997, p. 177).

However, once accepted into the group, members feel little commitment to it and little inclination to maintain its coherence. Participation in multiple groups, where one can leverage his or her verbal and intellectual skills, is the norm. Membership in on-line groups is, concludes Seabrook (1997), not for supporting others but for drawing attention to the self.

The tension between individualism and community spirit, although not explicitly discussed, is also present in Rheingold’s ‘Virtual Community’ (1993), especially in the way in which the book articulates its theoretical framework.  In this version of the book, crucial for consecrating the term for public consumption, Well occurrences (mostly from the beginnings of the 90s) are presented in positive and optimistic terms, minimizing, both theoretically and narratively, major tensions or conflicts, such as the ones described by Seabrook (1997) or Hafner (1997), despite the fact that the main material of the book are the postings to the conferences mentioned above. Only in a final chapter, added to the 2001 edition of the book, does Rheingold (2001) acknowledge some of the problems and drawbacks of the Well, although his vision remains overall an optimistic one. In fact, in his latest book, ‘Smart mobs,’ Rheingold (2002) reiterates, in a new context, that of wireless technologies, some of his initial hopes for conviviality and social progress expressed in the initial edition of ‘Virtual community.’

‘Virtual community’ succeeds in presenting a positive picture because Rheingold uses a monadic sociological model. This is based on only one, non-contradictory set of values, mostly of individualistic nature, which fails to directly acknowledge the dualist, tensioned ontology of virtual communities, which are shaped both by individualism and communitarianism. Yet, if not overtly expressed in it, read carefully, the book reveals implicit logical and theoretical tensions between individualism and communitarianism.

Rheingold’s model of on-line social interaction is strongly influenced by social exchange theory, which explains social action through rational self-interest. He takes, however, what is a descriptive and productive sociological idea and makes it into a normative one, when he adds that cooperative behaviors always emerge on-line as a product of rational choice: ‘whenever CMC [computer mediated communication] technology becomes available to people anywhere, they inevitably build virtual communities with it, just as microorganisms inevitably create colonies’ (Rheingold, 1994, p.7). This image makes the growth of virtual community look like the accretion of a coral reef from free-floating, independent larvae, an idea which he probably picked up from the Well,⁵ and which he combines with his belief that the seed from which social groups emerge on-line are human beings’ inborn rational self-interest. Because people are only reason-driven and have an ‘innate’ need to preserve and enhance their autonomous status through cost-benefit analysis, continues Rheingold: ‘Every cooperative group of people exists in the face of a competitive world because that group of people recognizes there is something valuable that they can gain only by banding together. Looking for a group's collective goods is a way of looking for the elements that bind isolated individuals into a community’ (Rheingold, 1994, p. 13).⁶ Rheingold simplifies the discussion about communities to a strictly utilitarian perspective, reducing a complex phenomenon to one of its aspects. This is probably justified in part by the fact that the book was addressed to the educated public. Yet, his utilitarianism seems to have roots that go deeper than the rhetorical constraints of the genre in which he writes.

            The utilitarian idea is obviously not new, being widely used in sociology and going back to the Enlightenment. In contemporary social science it is used in a variety of manners, most successfully when combined with the view that social action is the product both of groups, seen as wholes greater than the sum of their parts, and of individuals (Blau, 1994, Blau and Schwartz, 1997). However, for Rheingold, who operates in the countercultural context of the Well, utilitarianism has more individualistic than communitarian implications. As Bellah et al. (1985/1996) or Yankelovich (1981) have shown, the trope of self-interest and rational calculation, not originally an element of the countercultural generation of which Rheingold is a member, was found interesting by his congeners during the 1980s not for its explanatory, but for its prescriptive power.  

            The tropes of instrumental individualism were brought to life as an ethical crutch to the question: how can self-expression be preserved during social interaction? The solution is that in a world that privileges self-expression, self-interest should guide self-actualization.  Self-expressive individualists should also be utilitarians if they want to establish ties with other self-expressive individualists. They do this through ‘open communication,’ understood as non-judgmental exchange of information. The idea of sovereign and equal self-expressive personalities conjured an actional imagery of ‘exchange, [where] the self stands apart from what it does, and its commitments remain calculated and contingent on the benefits they deliver’ (Bellah et al., 1985/1996, 69). Here again we can see how belief in a “mystical egalitarianism” of self-expression, described above, turns the ‘open communication’ model into a weak tie, instrumental and self-centered ethic.  Reducing communication to self-expression and ‘information exchange’ might create the premises for a more egalitarian, non-judgmental social order, but this can also construct a world where the self (and its interests) is all that really matters.

The slippage from self-expressivity to instrumental individualism incorporated in ‘open communication’ is also recognizable in the way in which Rheingold applies these terms to on-line communication. His understanding of the concepts has the same double-edged nature as the process described by Bellah et al. (1985/1996). Describing his model of on-line communication in one his earliest articles about ‘virtual communities,’ Rheingold slips from ‘open communication’ seen as absence of prejudice to ‘open communication’ viewed as instrumental screening of undesirable people and relationships. After presenting in a glowing light the advantages of virtual communities—’[b]ecause we cannot see one another, we are  unable to form prejudices about others before we read what they have to say:  race, gender, age, national origin and physical appearance are not apparent  unless a person wants to make such characteristics public’—Rheingold (1987, 78-79) concludes that: ‘[i]n traditional kinds of communities, we are accustomed to meeting  people, then getting to know them.  In virtual communities, you can get to know people and then choose to meet them’ (1987, 78-79). This clearly shifts the focus from openness as tolerance, to openness as instrumental calculation.

            To conclude this ‘evidentiary’ part of the paper, virtual community discourse, as it has emerged on the Well, presents both explicit and implicit signs of a deep tension between individualism and communitarianism. The most probable source of this contradiction is the social and cultural context in which the ‘virtual community’ idea has emerged—that of the countercultural reaction to the ills of modernity. But why is this conclusion important? How can we take advantage of the idea that ‘virtual community’ is connected to the modern crisis and to countercultural ethical and social ideals?

Virtual community and the dilemma of modernity

Sociological research dedicated to countercultural communities and to their successor movements suggests that they were responses to the central dilemma of modernity: how can individual autonomy be reconciled with the highly socialized nature of the new human order? (Bellah et al., 1985/1996, Berman, 1970, Roszak, 1995, Wuthnow, 1976).Virtual communities, or at least the project that animates them, should then be considered as an attempt to ‘tame modernity’ themselves. Their success will be variable, just as the success of countercultural social formations was.

In either case, however, these social aggregates might be more of a symptom than a solution for the ills of modernity (Wuthnow, 1994). (Which is not to say, however, that they are the cause of these tribulations). To unpack these statements we need first to elaborate a little on the axial tension that characterizes modern society. While social interaction in modern life is presumed on the assumption of individual agency and autonomy, the complex arrangement of modern social institutions, characterized by an intricate division of labor, power and social roles, requires increasing incorporation of the same individuals in greater and greater social aggregates, which leads to anonymity and alienation (Beniger, 1987, Berman, 1970, 1982, Durkheim, 1984, Giddens, 1991, Lasch, 1991, Riesman, 1965, Taylor, 1989, Weber, 1947). While individuals gain in autonomy, they are simultaneously thrown into massified social classes, political parties and mediatic audiences. The counterculture tried to reverse the trend toward massification and anonymization by exacerbating, not repressing, the newly conquered autonomy of modern personalities (Berman, 1970, Roszak, 1995). This was an ambitious and immensely difficult project since the various social formations it has generated, of which the communes were the most prominent, have generally failed in their attempt to strike the right balance between commitment and self-expression.

This sentiment also had hung heavy over Well’s head at the time when the idea of ‘virtual community’ emerged, putting it in classical ‘countercultural dilemma,’ as is vividly described by one of its managers and former member of The Farm commune:

QQQ (qqq) Mon 02 Mar 1992 (11:01 AM) Some of us who lived on the Farm (certainly not all) came out of the experience with the impression that our attempt to create a lasting intentional community failed because we never defined the boundaries of that community.  There was always an open gate for new people to come in, try it out, take advantage of the limited resources and, usually, leave.  We asked for commitment from those who stayed, but there is no real way to guarantee that someone will continue living in a situation if they change their mind.  The WELL is not an intentional community.  Many are attracted to us because we sound more like a community than just about anything else out there, but those who come seeking the ideal defined community are often disappointed. The WELL is relatively small, carries much of its history online, has established jargon and memes, demonstrates a lot of interpersonal familiarity and relationship, and supports the kinds of gatherings and discussions that emphasize group identification.   It also makes itself open to anyone wanting to join, as long as they can pay, and it allows anyone to leave whenever they want.  This ‘churn’ works against the kind of stability that may be necessary to keep the kind of intentional community that Jen is referring to from surviving. 

            The picture that emerges from this somewhat meandering account of life both on the Well and on The Farm, is one of groups characterized by weak ties and low commitment, very familiar to most countercultural social groups.  Sociologically speaking, however, these issues are not specific to the Well or even to the countercultural movement; they are linked to structural transformations in the fabric of modernity. These processes can be connected back to the larger fragmentation of modern society, which deters rather than encourages social cohesion (Durkheim, 1984, Lievrouw, 1998, Wuthnow, 1998). Throughout this essay we mention the fact that the brand of individualism found on the Well matches quite well the parameters of what Bellah et al. (1985/1996) describe in America as the more general ‘expressive’ or ‘instrumental’ individualistic personality. But virtual communities, at least in their original project, just as many countercultural groups, were confronted by a general, not parochial phenomenon.

            Their major dilemma—how to forge groups that do not suppress individuality— is typically modern.  We call this the ‘dilemma of modernity’ because the process is an old one, being described for the first time by Alexis de Tocqueville (1840/1958) and reiterated several times since then, including when discussing about virtual communities (Fernback, 1997, Jones, 1997, Shapiro, 1999). When discussing the first ‘new nation’ in ‘Democracy in America,’ Tocqueville notes that its individualist social environment presents a series of advantages: increased social mobility, personal freedom, greater sense of self-efficacy, and equality of opportunity. Yet, this same individualism undermines people’s basic need for stable communities because it requires continuous reshaping of the social structure in order to preserve an equal chance for everyone to value their personality. In the process, existing communities encapsulated in place and kin based social networks are discarded. Members of modern society strive to create new types of communities to replace traditional ones. Communities of heterogeneous and unequal individuals, an obstacle for self-realization and personal fulfillment, are replaced by interest groups created by banding with those similar to oneself.

This puts modern men and women in a double bind, because what communities of common interest give with one hand—validation of one's self-worth in the company of one's peers—they take with the other (Tocqueville, 1840/1958).  These communities are inherently unstable, because their similar and equal members are continuously threatened to lose in a mass of ‘clones’ exactly what they were seeking: their individuality. Members will abandon their communities frequently and will try to create new ones with increasingly exigent barriers to entry, ‘by means of which each one hopes to keep himself aloof, lest he should be carried away against his will in the crowd’ (Tocqueville, 1840/1958, p. 227). These barriers often emerge in real life America as gated communities, country clubs or other forms of exclusive organizations.

The contradictions of modernity described by the French traveler and social philosopher are easily recognizable in the virtual community project. Their proponents’ desire to flaunt their uniqueness in such environments is also chronically undermined by the problematic way of finding it (Fernback, 1997, Jones, 1997). On-line communities are very clear ‘communities of similarity,’ since one of their purported virtues is that people of the same interests or socio-cultural background can come together without having to be located in the same physical space (Fernback and Thompson, 1995, Shapiro, 1999, Sunstein, 2001). Thus, the danger of being ‘carried away in the crowd’ is very keenly perceived by its members who try to keep themselves ‘aloof,’ in Tocqueville's terms, through self-expression. Verbal (writing) skills, or when these are lacking massive presence on-line by incessant postings, are often used as elements of ‘distinction.’ Authority based on tenure in ‘virtual community’—see the distinction between ‘newbies’ and old-timers—is also a way of claiming that although all voices are equal, a need for artificial distinctions is felt.

These processes might indicate that virtual communities solve the modern dilemma by affirming the triumph of individuality. In a first reaction to virtual communities, some scholars were inclined to approve this conclusion. Fernback and Thompson (1995), in an early and quite popular essay widely circulated on the Internet, proposed that the Internet continues the trend toward individuation and privatism specific to other, modern media, redefining the meaning of ‘community’ itself: ‘The extension of community into cyberspace is a natural outgrowth of the shift from an emphasis on the public to the private in the United States’ (Fernback and Thompson, 1995).         

            Despite other critical (and to a certain extent justified) opinions, such as Calhoun’s (1998, p. 385), who believes that ‘[w]hat computer-mediated communication adds [to pre-existing social patterns] is a greater capacity to avoid public interaction of the kind that would pull one beyond one’s immediate personal choices of taste and culture’ or Lievrouw’s (1998), who affirms that the cyber-cultural discourse rests on a type of type of ideological rhetoric used by the educated classes to create a space of technological isolation from social disagreement, one has to emphasize that the fate of virtual communities is and will be as tortuous and ambivalent as that of modernity itself.

            Modernity is a knot of contradictions, characterized by tensioned rather than by Manichean processes (Bell, 1976/1996, Taylor, 1989). Virtual communities should not be seen as either/or social formations, but as contradictory groups (Jones, 1998). They resemble, in their complexity, a cognate social phenomenon, Wuthnow’s (1994) ‘small groups.’ These are voluntary associations dealing with a variety of issues, from prayer and spiritual seeking to addiction recovery, emotional or distress support or book reading. Small groups are different from previous forms of voluntary associations in that they are more flexible, very open and informal. They are similar to the virtual communities ideal in that they emphasize non-judgmental support of members by each other and individualistic values. Their mission, according to Wuthnow (1994), is to offer their members an occasion ‘to focus on themselves in the presence of others’ (p. 6) and their ethos, which asserts only the weakest of obligations, can be summarized as follows: ‘Come if you have time. Talk if you feel like it. Respect everyone’s opinion. Never criticize. Leave quietly if you become dissatisfied’ (p.6).

            Wuthnow’s assessment of small groups is that they are a symptom rather than a solution for the main contradiction of modernity, and we propose that this perspective can be also applied to virtual communities. They, like many small groups, are also based on weak ties and voluntary participation, on emotional support, ‘open communication’ and non-judgmental interaction between members. While helping us to adapt to a new type of sociability, more flexible and individualistic, they further increase the flexibility of our social structures and the amount of individualism in our ethos. If small groups and virtual communities are the glue that holds together a high-modern society, especially the American one, ‘they are then a social solvent as well,’ says Wuthnow (1994, 25), adding that the ‘solvent helps people slip away from previous forms of social organization [and] it facilitates the enormous adjustments required.’ (p. 25) Virtual communities, like many small groups, are based on discursive interaction, on storytelling and verbal exchanges. This communication helps the members focus on the process and on their journey into unknown futures in the presence of others. The title of Wuthnow’s book ‘Sharing the journey’ captures this metaphor, befitting the nature of virtual communities as it is described in this paper, where companionship and community is found but for an individualistic journey.

            In brief, the Well and other self-conscious virtual communities, just like small groups, although characterized by high level of individualism, are not entirely devoid of community spirit. Under certain conditions, they can be a step toward social re-connection of those who feel isolated from the larger society. Although the social space small groups or virtual communities create will be short of the traditional ‘community’ ideal, it might create ‘ties that bind’ (Jones, 1998). Even individualistic values, such as freedom and openness can be construed socially, if used for reviving public discourse and preserving public goods, such as freedom of speech or the right to privacy, which the Well has so prominently professed and defended (Fernback, 1997).

Summary and conclusions

            This paper has tried to put in socio-historical context the concept of virtual community and to reveal some of its discursive implications. Specifically, we have tried to show that the discourse about virtual community relies on a set of contradictory values, both individualistic and communitarian. These values are reinforced by a belief in self-expression, self-interest and open communication, which are inherited from the countercultural past of virtual communitarianism.  This paper does not, however, resume itself to establishing formal relationships between narrative patterns found in the countercultural discourse and in the claims made by virtual community discourse. It also argues that this consonance reflects the fact that virtual community is an attempt to formulate a ‘new technological deal’ between people’s social and individualistic impulses in substantive terms as a response to the challenge of modernity. The force that animates this vision is the modern promethean impulse to invent not only our technologies but also ourselves and our communities, which produces a type of social bonds that weaken traditional arrangements and replace them with a new social structure.

I showed elsewhere (citations deleted for review) why this impulse appears to observers, such as myself, who straddle the European and the American experience, so much stronger, here, across the Atlantic. The central role of communication technology in managing and reshaping society reflects the response to the need of keeping a huge social and spatial aggregate together in an era of high social mobility, and in an uniquely (at least in project) egalitarian and secularized framework.  In this paper I continue this train of thought, showing how the American counterculture has tried to overcome the implicit tension between communication technology and control, between belonging to communities and individual achievement, by co-opting rather than rejecting technology and by mixing individualism with communitarian yearnings. Technology and dissent, previously in a strained relationship (Marx, 1964), were merged into a single, if not unproblematic, social project (Roszak, 1986).

In Boorstin’s (1978) felicitous phrase, the American ‘Republic of Technology’ tries to reconceptualize the basic American compact, ‘equal before God and the law’ as: ‘equal by the objects we use, posses or communicate with.’ Virtual community discourse propounds that communication technology is uniquely qualified to achieve the ‘Republic of Technology’ ideal since ‘equality by technology’ means not just access to mass consumption technologies—Boorstin’s example is the automobile—but individual expression technologies, i.e. computers and communication technologies.

The relationship between individuality, self-expression  and communitarianism is probably one of the thorniest issues of our day and many activists are still struggling with finding the right balance between individualism and communitarianism. This arduous project is even more challenging on-line, where issues of access, power, corporate conglomeration and social anomie are increasing, not decreasing. These are issues communication scholars are keenly aware of and intensely debated. The present paper, offering the larger perspective of the modern conflict between individualism and communitarianism, hopes to stimulate and further this debate.

Endnotes

  ¹ For a summary of research see the excellent literature reviews by Baym (1998), Harrison (1999) or Jankowski (2002).

  ² Although manifesting a certain affinity with the other major movements of the time, especially the civil rights and the anti-war movement, the counterculture is seen here as a distinct social phenomenon.

  ³ The Well was founded by Stewart Brand, a former countercultural activist and publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogue. The first director of the Well was Matthew McClure, a former member of Stephen Gaskin’s Tennessee commune, The Farm, followed by Cliff Figallo and John Coate, also Farm “graduates” (Hafner, 1997).

  ⁴ Except for Rheingold’s, who published some of his contributions to the Well in his books, all other postings discussed here will preserve the anonymity of the user. The sequence XXX (xxx) designates the place where the real name followed by the ‘handle’ (Well name) would’ve been in the posting. The letters used in this paper are unique for each contributor cited. All postings cited are from the Well ‘virtual community’ conference.

  ⁵ In a posting, one of the Well managers directly compares the Well with a coral reef, although this analogy was meant to have a historical, rather than a sociological connotation: ‘The WELL is conversations built up over years sort of like how coral keeps building on itself’ (Well, 1985-2003a).

  ⁶ This idea is borrowed from Smith (1992), another Well participant and author of a Master thesis about the ‘logic of virtual commons.’

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