The Language of Online Intercultural Community Formation in Junior Summit '98

Almost paradoxically, technologies that allow people to communicate across great distances have allowed social scientists to make advances in understanding the construction and maintenance of community. In particular, information and communication technologies (ICTs) have provided a miraculous window into the processes of community formation when the community members are vastly different from one another along the axes of age, culture, economic benefits, language, and other dimensions that would hinder if not prohibit communication in the physical world. But to what extent do online groups really demonstrate the hallmarks of community: increasing identification with group goals, patterns of assimilation to the other community members, growing enjoyment of joint tasks-not just work but also play? And when a group of people from many different countries come together online at the same time to create their own new community, does one culture dominate or are the collective voices of different world regions distinguishable? Does the voice of the nation that designed the forum influence the nature of the communication among the participants? How do these variables change over time as the members of the community come to know one another?