Group items tagged

The first stage, popular cyberculture, is marked by its journalistic origins and characterized by its descriptive nature, limited dualism, and use of the Internet-as- frontier metaphor. The second stage, cyberculture studies, focuses largely on virtual communities and online identities and benefits from an influx of academic scholars. The third stage, critical cyberculture studies, expands the notion of cyberculture to include four areas of study -- online interactions, digital discourses, access and denial to the Internet, and interface design of cyberspace -- and explores the intersections and interdependencies between any and all four domains

Virtual communities together form a social network which is superimposed on, and complementary to, the network consisting of face-to-face communities.