Social Resistance and the Self in Virtual Communities

This paper examines the phenomena of social resistance over the Internet as an important current component of activities in virtual communities. It also examines the various instantiations of the self over the Internet. Research in virtual communities has focused on issues of design to facilitate commerce or information interchange, and on the relations in societies that define or are shaped by technology use. The issues considered in this paper straddle both streams, and provide new focus areas for studying virtual communities.