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Virtual Community Management as Socialization and Learning

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Communities and Technologies 2005

Abstract

How does a (virtual) community thrive and survive over time? From having studied a thirteen-year old Swedish-language adventure mud, I here suggest that our understanding of the answer has to be built on a social theory of learning that takes into account that learning has to do with community, practice, meaning and identity. Making a “career” in a community of practice can be regarded as a movement from the periphery to the core, a movement from being a novice to becoming an expert in the activities that are central to the community. On that journey, the individual is over time “configured” into learning how to act, reason and think about the community in the right way.

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Pargman, D. (2005). Virtual Community Management as Socialization and Learning. In: Van Den Besselaar, P., De Michelis, G., Preece, J., Simone, C. (eds) Communities and Technologies 2005. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3591-8_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3591-8_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-3590-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-3591-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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