Guide Questions for Anada Mitra’s Virtual Commonality

1. What are some of the assumptions that Mitra makes about the possibility of communities in cyberspace?

Communities formed in cyberspace are like nations. People with common interest would gather together and form a community in cyberspace. However, these communities cannot be as real as the communities that exist right now since means of communication in cyberspace is not physical and hence, people can easily deceive others.

2. The “spatial scale” of Mitra’s dialog is national. Do you believe that in a nation of a billion people an Internet community such as soc.culture.Indian can have a national presence or impact? What are the conditions for such an impact to take place?

I do believe that nation over the Internet can have a national presence and/or impact as long as there is enough influences and controls.

3. The phrase “imagined community” is often applied to chat groups such as those studied by Mitra. Is he suggesting an imagined community or a “real” community?

He is suggesting an imagined community since no one in chat groups is obligated to follow anything.

4. David Bell refers to a “digital dispora” – people physically, spatially separated but who are making connections and finding commonalities across the Internet (and on bulletin boards specifically). For this digital dispora, ‘electronic space is the only common space that they can occupy’, meaning that it provides an important cultural resource.” What do you think of this description of the power of the Internet in a developing culture?

With the power of the Internet, new types of culture can be created by gathering distant individuals with common interest.