What is it about?
This paper is about how consumption communities both shape online spaces and are shaped by the spaces they inhabit. Research on online communities have focused on the social life of communities and tended to ignore the geographic character of the internet that influences what is and isn't possible in human interactions.
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Why is it important?
This paper looks at the intersection between virtual spaces and human interaction in building communities. This paper highlights how online spaces can enhance, constrain and fundamentally change the nature of the social interactions that occur within their borders. This paper is of interest to researchers interested in online spaces, and consumption communities. For industry, this paper illuminates how a consumption community may become a friendship community instead, thus losing the benefits to the brand and company of having a social network of highly engaged and dedicated consumers.
Perspectives
This article was the culmination of a long term online ethnography of more than a decade. I was very happy to publish this piece as it represents the openness and help the online community was willing to provide to the research process. If nothing else, I hope readers of this article are interested in the story of one community's journey from being about the consumption of a favourite brand to becoming a long-term group of friends who interact across all of life's events.
Toni Eagar
Australian National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The nomadic consumption community: the recursive role of space in community mobility, Journal of Marketing Management, May 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/0267257x.2018.1470101.
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