The prediction, in brief:

Communities can emerge from and exist within computer-linked groups, but that technical linkage of electronic personae is not sufficient to create a community.

Predictor: Rheingold, Howard

Prediction, in context:

Howard Rheingold, at the time the editor of The Whole Earth Review and a prolific member of the Well online community, became an advocate for such groups. In 1988 The Whole Earth Review published his article, “Virtual Communities.” Four years later, he said, “I reread it and realized that I had learned a few things, and that the world I was observing had changed. So I rewrote it.” The following excerpts are taken from this 1992 rewrite, which was published online by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Portions of it also appeared in “Globalizing Networks: Computers and International Communication,” edited by Linda Harasim and Jan Walls (MIT Press) and in the book “The Virtual Community,” by Rheingold (MIT Press). Rheingold writes:”Is the prospect of moving en-masse into cyberspace in the near future, when the world’s communication network undergoes explosive expansion of bandwidth, a beneficial thing for entire populations to do? In which ways might the growth of virtual communities promote alienation? How might virtual communities facilitate conviviality? Which social structures will dissolve, which political forces will arise, and which will lose power? These are questions worth asking now, while there is still time to shape the future of the medium. In the sense that we are traveling blind into a technology-shaped future that might be very different from today’s culture, direct reports from life in different corners of the world’s online cultures today might furnish valuable signposts to the territory ahead. … Communities can emerge from and exist within computer-linked groups, but that technical linkage of electronic personae is not sufficient to create a community.”

Biography:

Howard Rheingold, one of the first writers to illuminate the ideals and foibles of virtual communities, published a webzine called Electric Minds and wrote “Virtual Reality,” “Smart Mobs” and “Virtual Community.” He also was the editor of Whole Earth Review and the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1992

Topic of prediction: Community/Culture

Subtopic: Virtual Communities

Name of publication: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Title, headline, chapter name: A Slice of Life in My Virtual Community: A Cybernaut’s-Eye View

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/doc/eegtti/eeg_261.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney