Revising sense of community to study to understand typical and extremist virtual communities

Virtual communities are online groups organized around a shared interest within which members exchange information and socio-emotional support. Some virtual communities are positive (e.g., cancer support groups) or at least neutral (e.g., cooking groups). Others, like extremist virtual communities, focus on spreading misinformation and supporting violence. Theory and research have not adequately addressed the creation, maintenance, and face-to-face consequences of pro-social, neutral, or extremist virtual communities. One reason is because the research relies on a definition and model of sense of community for which empirical validation is deficient. Following examples in the organizational sciences and social psychology, I revise the sense of community construct to focus on its core meaning: literally, a person’s perception that a group is a community. Then using entitativity and social identity theories, I develop a new model of sense of community and propose theoretical boundaries (e.g., membership, identity, and self-categorization) to explain why prosocial and extremist virtual communities differ. I end with the challenges facing a research program studying extremist virtual communities.