China Social Science Review

No.3, 2023

 

Research on Digital Virtual Communities: Academic Context and Key Issues

(Abstract)

 

Zhang Jieying and Li Xueshi

 

Digital virtual communities refer to the communities formed by participants in the digital virtual world based on digital technology and platforms. It is generated by “techno-social” interaction, which is both material and social. New empirical phenomena are emerging in digital virtual communities. Existing sociological research has produced a series of topics such as virtual economy and its governance, work and labor in virtual communities, self-presentation, identity and cultural shaping in virtual communities and social meaning and boundary building of virtuality and reality. How to grasp the new phenomena and mechanisms of virtual communities, and meanwhile connect them with the existing theoretical resources and problem awareness of sociology, so that the research is not only a depiction of new phenomena, but also a dialogue with existing theories and contributions to them, is a major challenge in virtual community research and needs to be further explored.