PR 660 Lecture Notes - Lecture 61: Virtual Community, Telepresence, Online Identity

• School: Ball State University
• Department: Public Relations
• Course: PR 660
• Professor: Becky McDonald

Document Summary

Applying the measures of relationship quality to online communication (lecture part 2) A lot of online theorists are interested in how online communications helps form relationships without direct and face to face communication. A result from the internet is the creation of completely new organizational publics to think about. The internet overcomes several limitations with time and space, which create virtual communities and online communal relationships. Critics dismiss these communities by saying that those discussion chats and groups aren"t communities, but instead they are inauthentic pseudo communities. Escape reality through the creation of fantasies and alternative personas. Obtain social support from other people who share similar life experiences. Organizations can act as sponsors of internal communities online or as an active and coequal entity for people in external virtual communities that were created around important organizational topics. However, these organization-public relationships are different from interpersonal relationships because organizations aren"t natural to individuals.