Abstract

Most of the discussion about online community assumes that online groups operate in a realm completely distinct from offline life. This paper draws on the research literature examining online community and the author's long-term ethnographic/discourse-analytic research into one online community (the Usenet newsgroup known as "rec.arts.tv.soaps"). It argues that offline social worlds can permeate online communities in many ways. Far from disassociated, online and offline social worlds are intricately interwoven.