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Deindividuated Individuals?:
Ethnographic Study of A Virtual Community





By

Junghyun Kim, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Telecommunication
Michigan State University, USA
Communication Arts and Sciences, 406
East Lansing, MI 48824
1-517-353-3640 (H)
1-517-980-1700 (M)
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Paper submitted to Communication Theory and Methodology Division
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication 2003 Convention
April 1, 2003




Deindividuated Individuals? :
Ethnographic Study of A Virtual Community




Abstract

This is a study about how two unique characteristics of virtual communities
– the lack of social context cues and group environments – may affect the
individuals' interpersonal interaction as well as collective behaviors in
virtual communities. From an ethnographic study, this paper found out that
individuals in virtual communities behaved in congruent with their unique
community norms with extreme loyalty toward their communities, and that
they had hyperpersonal interactions with ingroup members.






Keywords: Deindividuation, hyperpersonal interaction, ethnography, virtual
communities



Introduction
"I am living two lives - a real life and a virtual life." This might be a
slogan for the people who are indulged in virtual communities. The life in
virtual communities can be totally different from the real one, and some
people might earn more satisfaction from their virtual lives than from
their real lives. Why is it that people are able to enjoy different lives
in virtual communities away from their real lives? How do people behave
differently in virtual communities? What kinds of factors in virtual
communities contribute to such phenomenon? This paper tries to answer these
questions through an ethnographic study of a virtual community.
The main purpose of this study is to figure out how unique characteristics
of virtual communities that affect the community members' communication
patterns and behaviors. In this study, two important factors characterizing
virtual communities were selected. The first factor is the lack of social
context cues (Kiesler, Siegel & McGuire, 1984) in the computer-mediated
communication (CMC) setting that virtual communities are based. In CMC
settings, people cannot be exposed to physical cues such as gestures, voice
tones and facial expressions, which are available in face-to-face (FtF)
communication setting. Another important characteristic of virtual
communities is that they are groups that have boundary and unique theme
distinguishing them from other groups.
Focusing on these two main attributes of virtual communities, this paper
examines both interpersonal interactions and group behaviors occurring
within a specific virtual community. For the interpersonal level of
analysis, this paper introduces and compares three different groups of
theories explaining the degree of interpersonal interaction in CMC. At the
group level of analysis, a few social psychology theories are introduced
that explain collective group behaviors, such as deindividuation theory
(Zimbardo, 1969) and self-categorization theory (Turner, 1987).
With such diverse theoretical frameworks, people's behaviors in a virtual
community are observed and analyzed by the author as an
observing-participant of the community. The virtual community selected for
the ethnographic study comprise of people who have common interest and
theme. This is an exploratory study testing theoretical frameworks and
empirical support to explain unique behaviors of the virtual community
members. However, it is the hope that this study can contribute to
inspiring further research on the relationship between unique attributes of
CMC setting in virtual communities and collective / interpersonal behaviors
of the virtual community members.

Virtual Communities vs. Reality-Based Communities
        A virtual community is a community of people sharing common interests,
ideas, and feelings over the Internet or other collaborative networks.
Virtual communities originally start from online or computer mediated
social gatherings to prompt considerable debates (Jones, 1995). According
to the traditional theoretical perspectives about CMC, social activities or
relationships in virtual communities have been believed to be inferior to
those in real world. Compared to FtF communication, CMC lacks social
presence (Short, Williams and Christie, 1976) and social context cues, such
as voice inflection, accents, facial expressions, directions of looking,
gaze meeting, posture, and touching. Therefore, the online environment was
seen as a forum prompting task-oriented, impersonal, or unsociable
interactions (Walther, 1992).
However, virtual communities maintained by CMC technologies share a lot of
common characteristics with reality based communities. People share
information and build social relationships in virtual communities as they
do in the real world based groups. Virtual communities also manifest
culture, such as learned beliefs, values, and customs that serve to order,
guide, and direct the behaviors of their members as reality based groups
(Arnould & Wallendorf, 1994). Therefore, it should not be surprising that
virtual communities possess an as-if-real status for their participants
and, thus, can have consequential effects on many aspects of their members'
social behaviors (Armstrong and Hagel, 1996).
Some virtual communities are composed of the members who are more devoted
to their virtual community lives than they are to their real lives. One of
the most salient examples is the X-files online community[1]. As the
websites devoted to the TV show called "X-files" were numerous and growing
rapidly, some fans proclaimed themselves as even "X-Philes" (from the Greek
word philos, meaning "to love") and referred to the entire arena of
discussion of The X-Files on the Internet as "the X-Net". Members of such
virtual communities have a high degree of loyalty toward their community
theme and tend to have tight bonding with ingroup members of their
communities. Therefore, if a newcomer wants to be a member of one of those
X-Philies' communities, he/she must build relationships of trust and gain
rapport with existing members (Kozinets, 1999). Such communities that are
based on specific theme also require respect for their ideals and beliefs.
The requirement for respect can involve acts of contribution to the
community, such as posting messages on regular basis, answering other
members' questions, or participating in various activities held by the
community, etc. The virtual communities with strong bonding may enable
people to maintain detailed and personally enriching social relationships
with other members. Thus, the interpersonal interactions among ingroup
members of those virtual communities may even surpass the degree of
interpersonal interaction within reality-based communities (Paccagnella, 1997).

Theoretical Frameworks
In this paper, the influence of virtual communities' unique characteristics
on community members' behaviors is examined and analyzed from different
levels of analysis. Two of the most important and salient characteristics
of virtual communities are: (1) that virtual communities lack social cues
because of their CMC settings; and (2) that they are groups made up by
people with common theme or interest. To figure out the relationship
between these characteristics and interpersonal as well as group behaviors
in virtual communities, three theoretical frameworks are used. First
theoretical framework, deindividuation (Zimbardo, 1969), is used to explain
community members' decreased self-awareness as idiosyncratic individuals in
virtual communities. How deindividuation phenomenon might influence the
community members' communication patterns and behaviors is examined under
both interpersonal and group domain of analysis. Interpersonal domain of
analysis considers individual as a basic unit of analysis and focuses on
interpersonal interaction that can be independent from contextual
influences. On the other hand, group domain of analysis focuses on
dynamics, rules or systems that are unique and different between groups.
Group domain of analysis considers a group as a unit of analysis rather
than focuses on individuals or their interpersonal interactions with
others. For the interpersonal level of analysis, three groups of
theoretical perspectives about interpersonal interaction in CMC are
adopted. Meanwhile, the group level of analysis on community members'
collective behaviors in virtual communities is guided by a couple of social
psychology theories.

1. Deindividuation in Virtual Communities
        Deindividuation theory is one of the early social psychology theories that
explain the psychological state of individuals when they are in large
crowds. According to the theory, deindividuation is a state of diminished
awareness of self and individuality (Zimbardo, 1969). Group or crowd
settings make individuals immerse into anonymous beings by reducing their
self-awareness as respective individuals (Postmes, 2002). This in turn
makes individuals experience less self-regulation or self-evaluation, which
leads to individuals' anti-normative and disinhibited behaviors (Postmes &
Spears, 1998). However, such argument of deindividuation theory has not
received much empirical support (Postmes, 2002). Instead, normative and
regulated behaviors of individuals in a group or crowds have been observed,
which is a phenomenon that is opposed to traditional deindividuation
perspectives. Even with the controversial results from research, the basic
assumption of deindividuation theory has been supported that individuals
have less sense of idiosyncratic individuality in a group setting.
Then how do virtual communities in CMC settings differ from physical groups
in deindividuation phenomenon? People participating in CMC are exposed to
limited number of social context cues. Especially in a virtual community
setting, people cannot see each other nor listen to each other. In such
environments, people do not have to reveal their personal identities nor
can they be exposed to perfect personal information of others. With limited
social cues available for communications, virtual communities have fewer
resources to emboss individualities of the community members compared to
that of a physical community. Thus, compared to the groups based on
physical world, virtual communities may possess a higher degree of
deindividuation as well as anonymity. How the intensified deindividuation
phenomenon in virtual communities may influence interpersonal / collective
behaviors of community members will be observed in the ethnographic study
of a virtual community.


2. Interpersonal Interaction in CMC: Impersonal, Personal and Hyperpersonal
Interaction
        The studies of interpersonal interaction in CMC have been mainly focusing
on how do unique characteristics of computer media – lack of social context
cues and mediated communication - influence on people's communication and
interaction patterns. Another characteristic of those studies is that they
focus on interpersonal domain of analysis - communication process between
individuals. To organize diverse theoretical perspectives of interpersonal
interaction in CMC, this article divides them into three groups according
to the degree of the interpersonal interaction.
The first group of studies takes on an impersonal interaction perspective.
This is because this group assumes that CMC has an inferior degree of
interpersonal interaction to FtF communication. This perspective is based
on "cue-filtered-out" approach (Walther, et. el., 1994), which argues that
the lack of nonverbal cues in CMC makes it more difficult for people to
interact with each other compared to FtF communication. According to the
cue-filtered-out approach, CMC lacks physical cues, such as gestures, voice
tones and facial expressions, which are essential to foster interactions in
FtF communication.
Social presence theory (Short, et. el., 1976) and media richness theory
(Daft & Lengel, 1984) are theories that exemplify impersonal interaction in
CMC. Social presence theory assumes that there are fewer channels or codes
available within a computer as medium, and that the user pays less
attention to the presence of other participants because of this (Walther &
Burgoon, 1992). CMC, with its paucity of nonverbal elements and feedback
cues, is said to be low in social presence in comparison to FtF
communication. When an individual experiences a lower sense of social
presence, their messages would tend to be more impersonal and unemotional.
Similarly, media richness theory evaluates the degree of interpersonal
interaction according to communication technology (e.g. bandwidth of
network) or number of cue systems available during the communication
process. In most of the theoretical frameworks based on the perspective of
impersonal interaction in CMC, mediated communication is considered to
restrain interpersonal interaction, while FtF communication is touted as
the richest, given the availability of immediate feedback and the number of
cues and channels utilized (Walther, 1992). Therefore, the more natural the
language is perceived to be, the richer is the medium (Daft & Lengel, 1984).
The second group of studies has discerned that CMC can convey interpersonal
interaction as much as FtF communication. According to the social
information processing perspective (SIPP) (Walther, 1992), CMC is no less
personal than FtF communication, given sufficient time for message exchange
and interpersonal relationship development. Contrary to the impersonal
interaction perspective, which emphasizes the value of nonverbal context
cues, the personal interaction perspective argues that language and
verbally transmitted messages are the main tools for developing
interpersonal relationships (Walther & Burgoon, 1992). Through positive
verbal messages as well as immediate responses and communication, CMC also
allows intensified interpersonal interaction similar to FtF communication.
Therefore, the personal interaction perspective has been trying to overcome
the weakness of the impersonal interaction perspective by adopting the
concepts of time and rate of message exchange as evaluation measurements of
the level of interpersonal interaction other than the variety and number of
communication cues.
The third group of studies – the hyperpersonal interaction perspective -
argues the possibility that there are more active and positive
interpersonal interactions in CMC, even surpassing FtF communication.
According to Walther (1996), CMC's characteristics of limited cues and
asynchronous communication could help people develop positive and desirable
relationships with their partners. The asynchronous characteristic of CMC
gives users enough time to contemplate and edit their communication, making
interactions in CMC more controllable and malleable. Limited social context
cues in CMC also could free users from worries about unintended appearance
or behavioral features being revealed. Those who receive only selected and
positive expressions from their partners could construct idealized images
of their partners and relationships. Those idealized perceptions make CMC
hyperpersonal, exceeding FtF interaction in intensity (Kim, 2000). Examples
of CMC that exceeds the levels of affection and emotion in FtF interaction
can be easily found in virtual communities, on bulletin boards, in games,
and in chatting. In particular, shared and common interests in virtual
communities make users more active in their behaviors, and cause them to
feel closer to other participants in CMC, notwithstanding that they share
limited information about each other (Walther, 1996).

3. Collective Behaviors of Group Members
        Against the traditional deindividuation theory which argues that
individuals behave in anti-normative way when they are thrown into a group,
a few social psychology theories provide alternative perspectives. Among
those theories, self-categorization theory (Turner, 1987) argues that once
individuals become members of certain group, they define themselves in
terms of group membership rather than individual beings. New identities as
group members make people behave in congruent with their group norms rather
than make them become anti-normative. After people categorize themselves
into certain group, similarities among ingroup members are accentuated and
they seek to favor their ingroup identity (Terry & Hogg, 2001).
Social identity of the deindividuation effects (SIDE) theory (Postmes,
1998) also focuses on people's deprivation of awareness as idiosyncratic
individuals in group settings, especially in virtual communities. One of
the main purposes of the SIDE theory is to reconceptualize deindividuation
phenomenon into something that can account for people's normative behaviors
in a group. According to the SIDE theory, individuals who are deprived of
their self-awareness as distinctive individuals tend to be more responsive
to group norms. Therefore, it might be possible to say that deindividuation
does not cause a loss of self-awareness, but rather it shifts a person's
identity from an individual one to a collective one as a member of certain
group (Postmes, 2002).
According to self-categorization theory and SIDE theory, an individual in
certain group changes his/her identity from idiosyncratic individuality to
a group membership, and behaves in normative way to show respect to the
group. The reason people behave in regulated ways is that they follow
certain situational norms that are specific to the group they belong. The
situational norms are considered appropriate and desirable only within the
particular group setting, not outside of the group. Thus, even though
members of certain groups do not follow the existing social norms within
the group, they are not anti-normative or unregulated. They just replace
their behavioral norms and rules of existing society with those of the
group. In that sense, an individual's conformity to situational group norms
is not consistent with the traditional deindividuation theory. Instead, it
can be referred as depersonalization (Turner, 1987), a tendency to consider
oneself as a member or representative of certain social groups rather as an
individual with idiosyncratic characteristics who are bound by existing
social norms (Postmes, et al., 1998).
As mentioned earlier, individuals as group members have a common tendency
to maintain their group by strengthening ingroup members' conformity to
their group theme and norms. The group itself also has a mechanism
pressuring its members to confirm to its norms and rules as a way of
preventing the opprobrium of the group (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). Conforming
to the pressure might be considered as a willing expression of loyalty
toward the group among the ingroup members, even though it might be looked
oppressive to outside of the group. Such a strong cohesiveness and loyalty
among members of certain group may increase the degree of attachment and
attraction to the ingroup members, but may increase outgroup hostility
(Postmes, et al., 1998). For example, a group of demonstrators marching to
certain destinations to express their cause might feel high degree of
hostility toward police troops who try to block them. Demonstrators have to
express their opinion by marching on the public road, while cops have to
ensure safe traffic on the road. When a group realizes that other group's
behavior based on its own norm may cause harm to its ingroup activity, then
both groups reject each other (Postmes, et al., 1998).
Then, do virtual communities show the same kinds of collective behaviors as
those of reality-based groups? In early CMC studies, the traditional
deindividuation theory was directly applied to the behaviors of CMC
participants. Thus, it was argued that the lack of social context cues and
the weak sense of shared social norms lead online group members to be more
aggressive and impulsive (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991). On the other hand,
other studies emphasized positive effect of deindividuation in CMC.
According to those studies, the lack of social context cues and
deindividuation democratize power relationships among people and enables
them to express themselves more openly through anonymity and
depersonalization (Kim, 2000). Regardless of whether the effects are
negative or positive, the characteristics of CMC, such as anonymity,
limited social cues, and ability to assume a new identity have been
considered to liberalize people from any kind of norms and boundaries
(Postmes, et al., 1998).
As more diversified CMC studies develop with time and the concept of
deindividuation changes, the new research results show that individuals in
a group setting behave normatively in congruent with specific group norms
(Postmes, 2002). However, the degree of members' conformity with virtual
community norms is expected to be stronger than that of the reality-based
groups. In CMC environments where individuals have limited social context
cues identifying each other, the idiosyncratic differences among group
members might be even less than those of physical groups that are based on
FtF communication. Thus, increased anonymity and decreased idiosyncrasy as
individuals in CMC environments may tend to foster more sense of cohesion
and attachment to ingroup members. Whether such inference can be supported
or not is tested by an ethnographic study of a virtual community at the
next chapter.

Ethnographic Research of a Virtual Community
The ethnographic research of virtual communities may be meaningful from
both of the two theoretical frameworks addressed above. First, in
interpersonal domain of analysis, most of the previous studies about CMC
have been focusing on quantitative elements to explain the characteristics
of CMC and its effects on interpersonal communication patterns. However,
quantity of messages exchanged or length of time spent on conversation does
not necessarily show whether there is a high degree of interpersonal
interaction between communicators or not. There rises the necessity of
studying content and quality of the interpersonal interaction in CMC. In
addition, existing research of interpersonal interaction in CMC have been
mainly focusing on the interpersonal communication free from situational or
contextual influences. The quality and characteristics of communications
can be varied according to communication types (one-to-one, one-to-many or
group), the theme of communication, and the degree of communicators'
participation (Kim, 2000).
        Second, there have not been enough empirical studies about deindividuation
phenomenon and collective behaviors in cyber space. Virtual communities
have different characteristics from those of the reality-based groups. So,
it might be meaningful to explore distinctive attributes of virtual
communities that result in unique group behavior patterns, rather than to
apply existing research results of reality-based groups directly to virtual
communities. As an exploratory step, this paper adopts a qualitative
ethnographic approach to figure out unique attributes of virtual community
members' communication patterns and behaviors.

1. Research Method
The research presented in this paper is based on ethnographic research.
Originally, ethnography refers to fieldwork, or the study of the
distinctive meanings, practices and artifacts of particular human groupings
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Ethnographers employ broad and structured
participative, observational and interview methods. Ethnographic study of
online communities might be fairly new concept compared to that of physical
communities. However, according to Hamman (1996), there are a number of
important benefits to conducting participant observation in online rather
than in offline. Those benefits include ease of access to the sample
population, the guarantee of physical safety and anonymity for the
respondent, and the absence of travel costs. Another possible strength of
conducting an ethnographic study on online communities is that the
researcher's physical features do not affect those who are being observed
as it might do in offline participant observation. There are also some
negative aspects of doing participant observation online, such as the lack
of observable physical cues and setting that often contain important data.
  The virtual community selected for this paper was set up by young Korean
people who like comics and animation. The author had been a member of the
community for a year from 2001 to 2002. Therefore, the author did
ethnographic study as an observing-participant, who already has a position
in the observed group before taking on the role of observer. For the
protection of the group's privacy and the convenience of explanation, the
community is named as 'community A'.
Online communities that are based upon subcultures of Korea's young
generation -comics, animation, idol stars or TV programs - attracted the
author's attention because of their strong membership ties and strong
affection to their own themes. Even though they look similar in their
themes and activities, each virtual community has unique rules and culture
distinct from other communities. Thus, to become new members of certain
community, people have to go through initial period of adjustment such as
learning their unique language, atmosphere or rules. In community A, the
author spent a couple of months visiting its chat rooms, getting to know
how things work, and finding main interests of the existing members to be
fully accepted as a regular member. After two months, the author was
recognized as one of the regular members in the community A. After accepted
as a regular member, the author had been posting board messages such as
review of comics or animation and participating in chat room conversation
at least once a week.
Through participation, observation and conversation with other members of
the community A, the author tried to figure out the degree of interpersonal
interaction among community members as well as collective behaviors in the
community. More specifically, the way members of community A interact with
each other and represent themselves in the community are used for
indicating the degree of interpersonal interaction in the observed virtual
community. Meanwhile, unique community norms and community members'
behaviors toward the norms are observed to examine the members' collective
behaviors in the virtual community.
2. Findings
        The findings of the ethnographic study of community A are divided into two
sections based on different domains of analysis: interpersonal interaction
among the community members and their collective behaviors in the community.

Degree of interpersonal interaction in virtual communities
Members of the community A turned out to have a high degree of
interpersonal interaction with ingroup members. The hyperpersonal
interaction among community members could be seen from the different ways
they treated regular members and non-members. Once a person became a
regular member after the process of building trust and gaining rapport with
existing members, he/she was accepted and considered as a family member of
the community. All the other members showed the new member much affection
and tried to share as much information or valuable products related to the
community's theme as possible. Every time a new accepted member uploaded
certain message on the community board, reference rate as well as response
rate became much higher than before he/she was accepted as a regular
member. To receive unconditional affection and support from existing
members, new comers were usually eager to be active in most of the
community's activities. The more enthusiastic a member was, the more
attention and support he/she could receive from other members. The degree
of influence a member could exert on community operation and management
also had something to do with how much effort and time he/she invested on
the community activities.
Most of the members of community A said that they felt included within
their community or bonded to ingroup members even though they did not know
much about each other. With such feelings of bonding, members could become
kinder and nicer toward other members or more explicit in their emotional
expression in community chatting times. According to one member of the
community A, she became much kinder than usual in her conversation with
other members when she was chatting with them. She said that she used a lot
of emoticons or smiling faces during the conversation and that became more
cheerful and affirmative toward other members to stimulate conversation.
Another member of the community gave an interesting episode supporting that
CMC setting can increase the degree of interpersonal interaction even more
than that of the FtF communication. She said, "I happen to talk much to a
guy whom I never met except in the virtual community. We become really good
friends after many hours of chatting and I felt pretty sure that he must be
a good person… We decided to meet face-to-face, but when we actually met,
we were extremely shy and did not know what to say. In the conversation at
the community chatting, we were like close friends who have known each
other for years, but it was really awkward for me to see him face-to-face."

Transition from an idiosyncratic individual to a group member
Most members of the community A had their own virtual nicknames that were
usually borrowed from their favorite comics or animation characters. They
distinguished themselves from other members only with their virtual
nicknames and even used them when they meet at offline meetings. However,
they did not want to reveal their real selves during any kind of the
community activities. They did not mention much about their real
identities, nor reveal their age, jobs, or where they were living, etc.
Unlike real organizations or groups in which people are treated based upon
their social positions or personal profiles, members of the community A
were evaluated and recognized by their knowledge about comics, animations
and the degree of participations in diverse community activities. In case
of member L, members of community A respected him only because he possessed
a great amount of knowledge about animations and comics. L also
participated every discussion opened by community A and uploaded more than
five articles a day on community board as well. He served as a
representative of the community A, and other members were always awed by
his knowledge and enthusiasm. Most of the important decisions related to
the community activities were followed according to his directions. The
members of community A had a chance to meet at one of the offline meetings,
and the member L turned out to be a high school student who was always at
the bottom of his class. He told the author that he was more satisfied with
his reputation and status in the virtual community than in his real life.
One of the reasons why community members did not want to be recognized from
their existing social identities was that they did not have positive
attitudes toward their real social lives including their school lives. The
student members of the community A usually thought that school did not know
anything about them and going school was a waste of time. They hated to be
regulated by school or family rules, which usually did not allow them to
spend a great amount of time on chatting, writing articles about comics or
animations they love, and searching for the information they wanted in
cyberspace. By staying up almost every night and exchanging day lives with
night lives, they showed that they did not want to be restricted by real
society's rules and restrictions.
While taking their real social lives less serious when they are in
cyberspace, members of community A were enthusiastic in participating
activities that were related to the community theme. Some instances could
be found in chatting experiences. Once they started chatting, they stayed
up all night talking about subjects such as who had seen more comics or
animation, how certain comic might end eventually, what were the good
things about certain comics, and how they could purchase comics or other
licensed products, and so forth. Those were general issues that were
brought up during chat sessions, but members wanted to show off their
affinity toward certain comics or animation through explaining extreme
details that cannot be caught easily.
The enthusiasm toward the community theme also led to excessive consumption
of products that were related to the community theme. Even though most of
the members were students with limited financial resources, they were not
afraid of paying huge amount of money for purchasing comics, animation
tapes, DVD and laser disc, etc. One of the members, K, had strong affection
for certain animation, that he bought almost every product related to it,
such as original sound tracks, video games featuring the characters of the
animation, film books, badges, stickers, and even parody comics of the
original animation. He said that he had to spend most of the money he
earned from working six days a week to buy what he wanted. Those products
could not be found in usual markets, so members of the community A usually
spent a lot of time on searching for the products they wanted in flea
markets or websites dealing with products they wanted. If they could not
find what they wanted in Korea, they even flew to foreign countries, such
as Japan, where they could get the products.
As predicted in both self-categorization theory and SIDE theory, the strong
affection and loyalty toward ingroup sometimes led to hostility toward
other communities that have different or conflicting opinion about the
theme they cherished. In case of having discussions with other community
members, members of community A rebutted other community members' critique
toward their community theme in unison. Even within the same community, a
member could be expelled or punished if he/she mentioned bad things about
the comics or animation they loved. Critique, even though it was necessary
for improvement of the community theme and community itself, was one of the
strongest taboos and considered to be ruining harmonic atmosphere of the
community A. Therefore, the community A wanted to play a role as a
supporting group for its theme rather than a space for finding a better way
to improve it though discussion and critique. As a supporting group for
their theme, one of the most important community norms of the community A
was confirming positive attitude and maintaining high degree of loyalty
toward the theme.
Another example of the tacit norm of the community A was that it was
considered to be impolite to ask other members about their real-life
identities, such as what they were doing for living, what school they were
attending, or how they looked like, etc. Members were to be treated equally
as long as they remained as members of the community and evaluated only
from their activities within the community. Even though newly accepted
members asked other members' social backgrounds, they could not receive
satisfactory replies from the existing members. The author also tried to
get personal profiles of other members of community A, but they usually
showed indifferent attitude to any kind of question asking their real
identities. By oppressing certain types of behaviors in implicit way,
members of community A, including the author, learned not to disturb
confirmative atmosphere within the community.
In addition to such implicit norms regulating community members' attitude
and behaviors, there were also explicit rules for consolidating its
uniformity and membership. Community A applied strict rules that directed
what members should do and should not within the community. The community A
placed rules upon its members such as: 1) members should participate in
community chat sessions at least once or twice a week; 2) members should
upload articles at least once a week on the community board; 3) members
should spend a certain amount of time a day at the community website; 4)
members should not use impolite language toward other ingroup members, and
if they do, they can be expelled from the community; and 5) members have
obligations to protect valuable information or products from being misused,
so they should not share them with others who are not the members of the
community A without permission from community board members. If anyone
wanted to be accepted as a community member, he/she had to strictly follow
these rules. Even though someone was already a member of the community A,
he/she could be expelled or punished if he/she did not follow those
community regulations.

Discussion
The ethnographic study of virtual community A suggests some points that
could help figure out interpersonal interaction and collective behaviors of
the members of virtual communities. The discussion section, however,
focuses more on virtual community members' collective behaviors in CMC
based group settings.
First of all, the phenomenon of deindividuation in virtual communities
leads to community members' congruent behaviors with group norms rather
than anti-normative behaviors. Limited social context cues in CMC setting
of virtual communities seem to intensify deindividuation, since people in
cyber space are more likely to be less sensitive about their or others'
appearances or social status. Such characteristics of CMC diminishes even
more of community members' self-awareness as individuals that are based on
existing social values and norms, compared to physical group setting. In
other words, the community members change their identities from individual
beings to parts of the group they belong.
Once included in the group, the members try to identify strongly with
ingroup members and reinforce their group identity though coercive as well
as voluntary measures. One of the ways to strengthen the group identity is
to show a supportive and positive attitude toward the group theme, while
not permitting negative attitude the theme. For that purpose, virtual
communities use filtering systems or group rules that block their members'
behaviors that could disturb harmonious atmosphere of the communities. The
filtering system could be either ostracizing a member who presented
negative opinion about the community theme or deleting posted messages
containing controversial content. By observing the filtering procedure and
receiving penalties, members of virtual communities become to learn what
they should do or should not do. Thus, all the new members of virtual
communities have adapt to the positive confirmation culture of their
communities. In that sense, the tacit norms and atmosphere promoting
positive confirmation toward its theme can have coercive power over
community members. With certain degree of oppressive influence, virtual
communities can make their members follow unique codes of conducts.
Second, the fact that virtual community members behave in congruent with
group norms may lead them to depend less on the existing social norms or
rules. The demographic background or social status in real life is not
important in virtual societies as long as community members are interested
in the same theme and follow the community's norms. In that sense, online
community could contribute to reducing social barriers that differentiate
or segment people into varied levels according to their races, gender, age,
jobs, social status, and even cultural differences. However, it does not
necessarily mean that people can create a boundary-free world in cyber
space. Instead, people build up different types of boundaries in cyberspace
by moving out of existing social groups into virtual groups. Each virtual
community has unique group theme and norms. However, norms that are used
for supporting virtual communities' identities and themes could be
different or even deviant from the existing norms regulating real world.
Therefore, certain behaviors that are consistent with certain virtual
community norms might be considered as anti-normative or rude outside of
the community. For example, virtual community members may have different
time concepts from that of the real world when they are spending time in
cyberspace. Even though they have to go to school or work next morning, it
is possible that community members stay up all night participating in
community activities and be late for school or work. In that sense, online
community members become to possess much more loosened and unregulated
attitudes toward reality-based time concept while they are indulged in
their virtual community activities.
Third, the fact that virtual communities do not have to be bound by real
world norms seems to attract young generation that does not want to be
regulated by rules that are placed upon by society. Young people create
their own virtual communities with unique subcultures where they could
liberate their suppressed desires or interests that could not be expressed
in their real lives. Community A was a typical cyber group that was set up
by people who were eager to share their interests with others. The members
of community A were interested in comics or animations, which were
considered as harmful and unhealthy hobbies ruining their school lives from
their parents' perspectives. Those student members spent much time on
talking about how bad their classes were, how oppressive their parents had
been toward them, or how they could forget about their unsatisfactory
school lives. Most of them did not have high goals of life, such as
entering good universities or becoming the people society wants them to be.
For them, doing what they really enjoy right here and right now was the
most important thing in their lives. Thus, virtual communities are the
perfect space for those young people enjoying what they want without
restrictions and rules from society.
Fourth, strengthening ingroup ties may lead to divisive, prejudiced and
discriminatory behaviors against the outer groups. As seen from the
ethnographic study of the community A, the members showed extreme hostility
toward any outer group that does not agree with their ideas or criticize
the theme of the community A. The more are community members identified
with their group theme and ingroup members, the more hostile and
discriminatory attitudes they have toward other groups. One of the reasons
behind such hostility toward outer groups may be virtual community members'
strong belief that their community's identity can be maintained and
strengthened only when their community theme is strongly supported by
ingroup members. Since most of virtual communities are created and inspired
by specific themes or interests, to lose ingroup members' support and
enthusiasm toward those themes can be fatal to the very existence of
virtual communities. Thus, virtual communities are concerned that their
community themes may lose support ground if ingroup members are exposed to
critique or negative opinions from outer groups.
Finally, deindividuation that is intensified by limited social cues in CMC
will lead to hyperpersonal interactions among community members. The
hyperpersonal interaction in virtual communities can be explained by two
reasons. On the interpersonal level of analysis, people have positive and
active interaction with each other because of the fact that they could have
totally different personalities in CMC. Due to anonymity and the lack of
social context cues when engaging in CMC, a person can create a better and
even idealized self in virtual communities. According to the hyperpersonal
interaction perspective, the interpersonal interaction among those
idealized or refined people tends to be more confirmative and affectionate.
Conversely, on the group level, virtual community members' loyalty toward
their group theme and norms seem to lead to hyperpersonal interaction. To
support and reinforce their community itself and its theme, community
members show affectionate feedback to other members who are doing
confirmative behaviors that are congruent with the community norms. A
virtual community's supportive atmosphere to its members' behaviors that
are congruent with community theme is one of the strategies maintaining a
unique ingroup identity that is distinctive from other groups. Members of
virtual communities have much more confidence in their behaviors when their
behaviors are consistent with the community norms, and such confidence lead
to active and positive interaction among ingroup members.
The discussion of the relationship between deindividuation and group
norm-oriented behaviors as well as hyperpersonal interaction can be
summarized in the following flow chart:

Hyperpersonal interaction among
ingroup members


Lack of social
cues in CMC
settings
Intensified
Deindividuation


-Hostile to outgroup
-Deviant behaviors
from existing society
norms
Congruent with
ingroup norms



Figure 1: The relationship between deindividuation and interpersonal/group
behaviors of virtual community members

Conclusion
It is hard for an individual to be distinctively distinguished as a person
when he/she is with many other people in a group. People in a group or
large crowd can be anonymous, but it does not necessarily mean that they do
not have any sense of self-awareness or identity. Instead, individual
idiosyncrasies tend to be worn out and overwhelmed by a group theme or
cause that all the group members share in common. Therefore, identity as a
group member is amplified and is substituted for an identity as an
individual in a group setting.
Virtual communities - groups based in CMC settings – can experience
intensified deindividuation of their members more than communities based on
real world. Virtual communities with limited numbers of social context cues
strip their members of their individual self-awareness as well as personal
characteristics that are based on the real world. Lack of accessibility to
the community members' real selves allows them to be easily exposed to a
larger and common theme beyond individual differences. With the guidance of
new identity as a group member and group norms, an individual behaves in
confirmative and regulated way within virtual communities.
One of the most unique collective behaviors in virtual communities is that
their members tend to strengthen and protect their group identities by
encouraging positive attitudes while restricting negative attitudes toward
their community theme. Such atmosphere of upholding the community theme
makes its members show strong affection and support toward other ingroup
members whose behaviors are congruent with their community norms. Community
members who receive support from other ingroup members become confident in
their behaviors, which in turn stimulate other members' desire to be
accepted and supported. Through the encouragement and filtering process,
the reinforcement and maintenance of the community theme can be achieved.
However, the community members' behaviors that are consistent with their
cherished norms and themes are not necessarily harmonious with those in
real world they are actually living in. Therefore, if people want to escape
from their real lives that are regulated by existing social norms, they can
join virtual communities and live new lives abiding by new norms they
choose to follow.







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[1]  An on-line community consisting of people who are interested in the
hit FOX television series and major motion picture The X-Files, and its
attendant merchandise (books, magazines, collectibles) (Kozinets, 1999).