A community of interest, or interest-based community, is a community of people who share a common interest or passion. These people exchange ideas and thoughts about the given passion, but may know (or care) little about each other outside this area. Participation in a community of interest can be compelling, entertaining and create a community where people return frequently and remain for extended periods. Frequently, they cannot be easily defined by a particular geographical area.
In other words, "a community of interest is a gathering of people assembled around a topic of common interest. Its members take part in the community to exchange information, to obtain answers to personal questions or problems, to improve their understanding of a subject, to share common passions or to play."[1] In contrast to a spatial community, "a 'community of interest' is defined not by space, but by some common bond (e.g. feeling of attachment) or entity (e.g. farming, church group)."[2]
"Online communities" connect to communities of interest in that often, they develop out of interests in a particular topic.[3] A benefit of online communities over place-based communities is that of non-physical access to group involvement.[3]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Henri, F.; Pudelko, B. (December 2003). "Understanding and analysing activity and learning in virtual communities: Activity and learning in virtual communities" (PDF). Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. 19 (4): 474–487. doi:10.1046/j.0266-4909.2003.00051.x. S2CID 14040518.
- ^ Ramsey D, Beesley KB (2007). "'Perimeteritis' and rural health in Manitoba, Canada: perspectives from rural healthcare managers". Rural and Remote Health. 7 (4): 850. PMID 18081449.
- ^ a b Hopkins, Liza; Thomas, Julian; Meredyth, Denise; Ewing, Scott (November 2004). "Social capital and community building through an electronic network" (PDF). Australian Journal of Social Issues. 39 (4): 369–379. doi:10.1002/j.1839-4655.2004.tb01188.x.
Further reading
edit- External and shareable artifacts as opportunities for social creativity in communities of interest Archived 2017-05-19 at the Wayback Machine
- Communities of Interest: Learning through the Interaction of Multiple Knowledge Systems Archived 2016-05-18 at the Portuguese Web Archive
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