Measuring Virtual Community Cohesion

This paper presents findings of a preliminary study on virtual community cohesion with the aim to measure the social cohesiveness of users of the social media. Whilst social media can be a medium for social integration, it can be a tool to instigate disunity and social calamity. This study attempts to gauge the perception of ordinary Malaysian citizens who are users of the social media on the existence of cohesion in the virtual community that they participated. This can be a basis in harnessing social cohesion as a form of intellectual capital towards competitive intelligence. A survey was conducted involving 129 users of the social media using a virtual community cohesion measurement construct developed earlier. Data analysis was carried out on the respondents’ demography and perceptions with regards to the state of cohesiveness of the virtual community they were involved with. Results indicate that General Trust, Willingness to Cooperate, and Sense of Belonging were the top 3 most important constructs for virtual community cohesion perceived by respondents. Descriptive statistics were employed to understand the cohesion constructs better where different age groups particularly youths and teenager schoolgoing children have different perceptions on virtual community cohesion. Further modeling of the construct was suggested to improve its predictive power for future study.