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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Argyris, C. and D. Schön. Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1978.
Bartle, Richard. “Hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades: Players who suit muds”. Jrn. of Mud Research 1, (1996) 1 < http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm>.
Bartle, Richard. Designing virtual worlds. Indianapolis, Indiana: New Riders Publishing, 2003.
Berger, P. and T. Luckmann. The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. London: Penguin books, 1966.
Bruckman, Amy. Identity workshop: Emergent social and psychological phenomena in text-based virtual reality. Unpubl. manuscript, 1992. < ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/people/asb/papers/identity-workshop.ps>.
Feller, J. and B. Fitzgerald. Understanding Open Source Software Development. Edinburgh, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2002.
van Gennep, Arnold. The rites of passage. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1909/1960.
Goffman, Erving. “The moral career of the mental patient”. Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes 22, no 2 (1959).
Jordan, B. Cosmopolitan obstetrics: Some insights from the training of traditional midwives. Social Science and Medicine 28, pp.925–944 (1989).
Lave, J. and E. Wenger. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Lessig, L. Code and other laws of cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Moody, G. Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. London, England: Penguin books, 2001.
O'Day, V., D. Bobrow and M. Shirley. “The social-technical design cycle”. Proceedings of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW'96). Cambridge, MA, 1996.
Pargman, Daniel. “The fabric of virtual reality: Courage, rewards and death in an adventure mud”. M/C-A Journal of Media and Culture (special issue on “games”) 3, No. 5 (2000a). < www.media-culture.org.au/0010/mud.html>
Pargman, Daniel. Code begets Community: On social and technical aspects of managing a virtual community. Ph.D. Dissertation. Dept. of Communication Studies, Linköping University, Sweden, 2000b.
Raymond, Eric. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilley & Associates, 1999.
Schiano, Diane. “Convergent methodologies in cyber-psychology: A case study” Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 29, No. 2 (1997): 270–273.
Torvalds, L. and Diamond, D. Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary. New York, NY: Texere, 2001.
Turner, Victor. The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1969/1995.
Weinberg, Gerald. The psychology of computer programming. New York: Dorset house, 1971/1998.
Wenger, Etienne. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer
About this paper
Cite this paper
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
Download citation
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)