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The Internet is an interconnected computer network. It allows people to communicate through e-mail, newsgroups, bulletin boards, net phone, and exchange information through the World Wide Web, File Transfer Protocol and other protocols that allow people to send data between computers.

The Internet has developed rapidly since ARPANET, which connected computers on the University of California Los Angeles campus in1969. The US military saw the value of this new tool for rapid communication. In 1983 a civilian Internet developed using e-mail and FTP. The World Wide Web started in 1991 with the first release of HTML. The Faculty of Health Sciences used the World Wide Web for teaching in 1995.

The Internet started as a secret Cold War military project. It is now an unplanned open network with no central control which some claim is the most liberating force in the world today. The modern equivalent of turning swords to ploughshares. Others claim that the Internet has unprecedented potential for social control.

We have seen that community is, at heart, a kind of relationships between numbers of people. The Internet provides an unprecedented network of communication and therefore a new medium for the development of community. People talk about on-line communities, or virtual communities. The first question sociologists have addressed in relation to these communities about the meaning of 'virtual community'. Is a virtual community a new kind of community, which we label 'virtual', or it a virtual community something like a community but not really a community?

It is argued that virtual communities are not real. They are not communities at all. Just networks of communication through electronic media. Once we see through the hype and jargon we can continue live in the real world much the same as before. We might say that virtual communities are almost real. People who communicate on the Internet interact in a world which is almost real, but it is a social world of people without bodies. The communication and interaction is real, but you cannot have a community without people. The people who communicate belong to real communities in the places where they live with their bodies.

Albert Benschop maintains that Cyberspace is an illusion. It is not anywhere in our physical reality. It is experienced as reality, but it is nowhere It can be experienced anywhere, but it is not really anywhere. Cyberspace is a virtual world (visit his web site at www.pscw.uva.nl/sociosite/WEBSOC/network.html).

Some people refer to Cyberspace as a virtual world, as if it is an alternative to the ‘real’ world. But the Internet is part of the ‘real’ world. People interact in many ways. The Internet is one of these. Cyberspace is a social construction, just as this University is a social construction. People can move between on-line and off-line social ‘spaces’, just as we can have students on- and -ff-campus in this Unit of Study.

So let us consider whether a community can exist in Cyberspace. If we think about the process of community formation, we realise that the process of community formation is communication. Communication is the process, and interactions are the elements of community formation. A community’ is a set of networks of direct social interaction, a complex of relationships, system of values and a set of shared symbols & cultural elements

We can argue that a virtual community has all these elements. It has been argued that the Internet is not the network of wire and computers, it is the communication and interaction. That is, the relationships. If 'community’ is people interacting and relating around shared interests, this can happen on-line.

A social system is made up of interactions. Any system of interactions has patterns that can be studied. Sociologists are able to study the Internet as a social system, or as part of a larger social system. The Internet has social interaction, culture, economic activity and political aspects. It can be argued that it has everything that ‘real’ communities have except physical contact. Perhaps people are building virtual communities in reaction to the disintegration of traditional local communities. People meet on-line to do the things that other people do in public spaces of local communities. Internet interactions have real and off-line consequences.

Perhaps we are moving towards a global stateless society. The world’s industrial and technological societies are organised as states with hierarchical bureaucracies. It is surprising to find the Internet is not organised or controlled by state bureaucracies or industrial corporations. Perhaps it is a new form of social organisation, with opportunities for structures that are not bound by the hierarchical relationships of the state.

With this in mind it should be realised that virtual communities are not necessarily constructed per chance, they are constructed because individuals each seek congeniality.  In contrast, a virtual community can also develop without like-minded interest and pre-set planning for its foundations. Open chat forums can often draw together a regular crowd of people online, just as people going to a pub after work to relax may meet together on a routine basis with no set agenda to attend to once at their regular meeting place. Although this is a good social example of intermixing, it still doesn't constitute a community. That can only take place when each of these peoples lives begins to impact upon each other. The 'pub' example is social gathering that may lead to a community, just as those who meet in chat rooms regularly may do the same. A community only eventuates when communication AND interaction takes place.  Simple chat is not interaction.

Communication is at the heart of the construct of a community as is physical presence. The Internet can not provide 'real time' physical presence. At best it can provide video imaging through Web cameras and audio to go with the video, or even independently of it. This is a big plus for a virtual community as it does provide every opportunity to see and interact with many different people around the world in a conference like setting on your monitor. But still, physical contact is not present. This does not mean to say that the benefits a community environment offers cannot be attained online. For example, virtual communities have adopted a language unique to them that promotes fun and entertaining interaction which attempts to compensate for the loss of physical presence within a community. The language itself is aptly called "netiquette". It is used in anagram form to describe emotions and actions that one net user wishes to convey to others. A common one seen in online conversation is "LOL" which translates to "Laughing Out Loud". There are literally hundreds of these anagrams used in online conversations, and there purpose is to stimulate an environment that goes beyond the two-dimensional community that has been created.

Other applications used in virtual communities are Avatars and sound files. Avatars are small, thumbnail sized photos. They can be posted on a browser screen that supports Avatar chat, with the picture displayed representing yourself even though the picture does not actually have to be you! They are a persona of who you wish to display to those in the virtual community. Sound files may also be played online during conversations in a virtual community. These sounds may emphasize emotions such as laughter and crying or may simply be used to give others a sample of your real speaking voice.

In relation to people who may find meeting others in a "real life" community environment awkward, for example, they are elderly and cannot readily travel to certain community meeting locations due to poor health or disability, a virtual community may provide an alternative sustainable interest environment for them. Furthermore, online communities can provide support to various members of the greater community through information services, such as health caring associations. For example, you may have a relative who is unable to do home care or personal care for themselves (i.e. do their laundry, take a bath, cook meals, look after their garden, go to the toilet by themselves etc) and it is now your responsibility to help them do this. You may wish to search for techniques and skills that may help you care for them. By logging online and finding a Health Science Organisation or Association you can be directed toward the necessary information you require to help aid your relative. From this initial contact with a Health Science information group, you could then be introduced to a community of people in a similar situation as your own, who will be there online for you to talk with and who will offer personal advice on how to cope with your new found responsibilities of looking after your relative. This is one example of the many benefits of a virtual community. You need go no further than your computer to attain information and/or support for any certain situation in your life.

The debate on whether a virtual community is indeed "virtual", when compared with communities in "real life", is no simple argument to solve. Individuals created the Internet therefore, individuals go online to use it. If it is our nature as people to build cities, towns, clubs, and pubs in real life to cohabitate in, then it is only to be expected of our behaviour to construct such establishments in Cyberspace. Perhaps we are doing nothing more than extending what sociological tendencies we have in the material world and furnishing our technological advancements with our humanity. In the end, both virtual communities and "real life" communities compliment our social tendencies and our basic need to share our ideas and experiences.