I’ve been working on my PhD project for several years, so it feels great to finally complete it!

The thesis is written in Swedish and can be downloaded here.

I’m writing my thesis in Swedish and it has the title “Mjukvarumiljöer för gemenskap” which becomes “Software environments for community” in English.

I think the pre-seminar went well and together with my supervisor I have now decided on a plan that should help me to finish my thesis work before summer 2010. Hooray!

I’ve also tried to work on my thesis, but it’s been difficult to create enough free space in my calendar to actually make progress. However, I’m now in a position where I should be able to focus more on the thesis and I really look forward to it. I have a draft version of 8 chapters and will work on the last three chapters in Oct-Nov. Wish me luck!

The paper by Soukup does not include a comparison of any specific online environment and the generic model of a third place. Instead, this paper deals with the broader question of whether or not Oldenburg’s concept is appropriate when trying to understand computer-mediated communication (CMC).

I especially appreciate the section on how CMC contexts are unlike third places. It is argued that as third places emphasize localized community, are easily accessible, and function as social levellers, their virtual counterparts do not – at least not in the same way or to the same extent.

For the most part I find these arguments reasonable and I have since long advocated that online third places differ fundamentally from the ones depicted by Oldenburg. But as I understand the solution presented in this paper, we should still aim towards a perfect match with the characteristics of a physical third place – and I do not buy into that. Since online environments are indeed different than physical settings I don’t fancy the idea of trying to design online spaces using offline experiences as a design ideal. Instead, I want to study how the third place is mediated and experienced online – without assuming that it must be similar to offline experiences. It is not a goal in itself to find generic third places online. If the perfect third place does not exist online we should try to find a more appropriate concept instead of stubbornly holding on to something that only exist offline.

(Parts of this text has been posted earlier in my previous, since long discarded, blog.)

Many scholars have suggested that virtual community spaces could be regarded as being similar to the third places as described by Oldenburg – and one example of such an attempt is a paper from 2006 by Steinkuehler & Williams; Where everybody knows your (screen) name: online games as “Third places”. I recently reread this article and remembered writing about it on my old blog (no longer online), so here comes some new thoughts for my new blog…

The paper by Steinkuehler & Williams is well-written and the authors basically map the characteristics of Oldenburg’s third place on MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games). The arguments are that 1) the MMOG’s under study can be viewed as third places, and 2) the participation in such virtual places generates the formation of bridging social capital rather than bonding capital.

The first argument is perhaps what you would expect from this kind of study. The second one is more novel since it implies that as relationships associated with bridging over time develops into deeper relationships, the function of MMOG‘s as third places fades. The authors write:

“It is worth noting, however, that as gamers become more involved in long-term social networks such as guilds and their activities become more “hardcore” (e.g., marked by participation in large-scale collaborative problem-solving endeavors such as “raids” into difficult territories or castle sieges), the function of MMOs as “third places” begins to wane. Not all MMO players make this transition, but those who do are likely to experience relationships closer to bonding ones than bridging ones. It may be, then, that the structure and function of MMOs as third places is one part of the “life cycle” for some gamers in a given title. As complex, long-term collaborative activities become increasingly prevalent, the game becomes increasingly more entangling, time-consuming, and work-like.”

For me, highlighting this pattern appears to be the main contribution of this paper. I think it is a relevant observation that to some extent also is valid in the context of my own work.

This year I will chair a roundtable on social network sites and online communities together with Lewis Goodings. Other panelists include Nancy Baym, Malene Charlotte Larsen, Amanda Lenhart, Raquel Recuero and Jan Schmidt. I am happy that we have been able to gather these great people and hope for an interesting discussion during the roundtable session.

Here is an extract from the roundtable description:

Life On The Move: Social network sites and online communities

Social network sites (SNSs) like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace are rapidly becoming a popular area of research investigating online ‘communities’. This immediately raises the question of how new SNSs can be understood as a descendent of the ‘virtual community’ that was popularized in the 1980′s (Rheingold, 1993). [...] The purpose of this roundtable is to further discussions on the present shapes of online communities in light of the current trajectory of social network popularity. In particular, to what extent are online communities tied to a particular site? And consequently, how can we rethink notions of community in line with recent trends in SNSs?

[…] The underlying premise is that ‘life on the move’ produces a certain problem for academic researchers as to how we locate the individual (or the community) in such a dispersed social landscape. Therefore, how can we understand community involvement when users are members of a number of different community sites and SNSs and move regularly from one site to another? A further problem here is how we as researchers resist the mundane assumption that inherently complex online communities are only recognisable in terms of the users movement in and out of them, surely there is much more to it than that.

Yesterday the site www.umealive.se was launched and on that site we will try to present everything that happens within the project. I will also have a new blog there (in Swedish) and I will probably update it more often than I update this one.

	Sherry Turkle, (1995), Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
	Marc Smith and Peter Kollock (editors), (1999), Communities in Cyberspace, London: Routledge, 1999.
	Michael Heim (1993), The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
	Ray Oldenburg (1991), The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community, New York: Paragon House, 1991.
	Christine Hine, (2000), Virtual Ethnography, London: SAGE.

The books above are displayed in the actual order of my readings. When I read the books by Turkle (1995) and Smith & Kollock (1999) I had just finished my undergraduate education and I was not familiar with Internet research at all. These books opened my eyes to the complex social dimensions of Internet and I found it fascinating. I still do btw.

Heim (1993) was also fascinating, but in a different way. I remember sometimes feeling completely dizzy when reading about Heim’s philosophical thoughts on the essence of cyberspace. I didn’t understand all of it – but I still loved it because it kind of made sense, somehow. I haven’t really used Heim that much in my work but when I look back I think the writings by Heim boosted my curiosity about technology and its “true” character.

My interest in online communities gradually evolved in the years that followed and when reading The Great Good Place by Oldenburg (1991) I felt that I was on to something, both professionally and personally. Until this day, the image of a thriving third place has been almost like an inner vision to me and helped me to value the everyday places where I live my life. Life should perhaps not be so much about chasing extreme experiences but about finding the beauty in the mundane and enjoying everyday life. In my studies of online communities, the notion of third places online has also been a great help when trying to understand how people find their stay online meaningful and worthwhile.

Finally, Hine (2000) has been really important for my PhD project and helped me to develop a methodological approach that makes sense to me. For a while I felt kind of lost and didn’t know how to capture the things I wanted to study using conventional qualitative methods. Then I read about virtual ethnography and was presented a methodological approach that I could build my work on.

Of course there are other books that also have been important to my work. But these five are among the most important and they probably still influence me more than I am aware of.