Projectskeyboard_arrow_rightThe Power of Virtual Communities The Power of Virtual Communities
What enables online groups to become sustainable and meaningful communities, and what are the characteristics of the community leaders that create and support them?
Description
Online groups are significant contemporary organizations that can generate impact, and provide their members with a strong sense of community and belonging, despite not operating in physical space. The Power of Virtual Communities project examines the role online groups - Facebook groups in particular - play in creating opportunities for people to build new kinds of meaningful communities they often could not form in real space. We seek to understand the conditions under which online groups are able to successfully become meaningful communities, as well as the characteristics of the community leaders that create and support them.
The project builds on 50 interviews with community leaders and 26 community experts, and a review of over 150 academic articles and 29 pieces of internal Facebook research. The report also describes the findings from an original global survey conducted by YouGov of 15,000 people in 15 markets who are currently members of online and in-person communities.
Results & Impact
The GovLab published the findings from the study in a report, entitled The Power of Virtual Communities, in February 2021.
The report findings note that:
- Membership in online communities confers a strong sense of community, the lack of physical proximity notwithstanding.
- In many cases online groups attract members and leaders who are marginalized in the physical societies they inhabit, and who use the platform to build new kinds of communities that would be difficult to form otherwise.
- New kinds of community leaders have emerged in these groups with unique skills in moderating often divisive dialogues, sometimes among millions of members.
- Most groups are run as a labor of love; many leaders are neither trained nor paid and the rules that govern their internal operations are often uncodified and the hosting platform - in this case Facebook - holds significant power over their operations and future.
Further, results from the YouGov survey and the interviews with group leaders indicated that the three most essential traits and behaviors for leaders to exhibit were welcoming differences of opinions, being visible and communicating well, and acting ethically at all times.
This report further shines a light on the role leaders have and why it is important to further support them in running their community.
