Quentin Jones (1997)

Virtual communities, virtual settlements and cyber-archaeology: a theoretical outline

JCMC 3(3)

Defining a cyber-settlement and a virtual community

Cyber settlement is a cyber-place that is symbolically delineated by a topic of interest and within which a significant proportion of interrelated group-CMC occurs. A virtual community is a set of social relationships forged via a virtual settlement.

A cyber settlement requires:

* Minimum level of interactivity Interactivity is the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages. This demand for interactivity means that an email list which distributes information is not a virtual community.
* Variety of communicators More than two communicators. This excludes database queries and interactions.
* Virtual common-public-space where a significant portion of interactive group-CMCs occur This excludes private communications which go through no common space. Without this notion, the notion of virtual community loses its value because it is indistinguishable from many other forms of CMC.
* Minimum level of sustained membership