c. Types of Blogging Communities and Methods to Build Blogging Communities

The term ‘online community’ implied a community who interacted online within some bounded set of technologies (White, 2006). However, the term has changed over time. A community is formed when people blog about various topics and they started to find each other, commenting on each other’s blog. According to White (2006), the blogging community can be divided into three main categories with a variety of hybrid forms appearing between the three.

The three main patterns are the Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, the Central Connecting Topic Community and the Boundaried Community. The Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community may have more than one blogger writing in one blog and is a sort of organization where the readers not only get to know the blogger but also the community of commenter’s. The blog owner holds most of the power in this community. The Topic Centric community on the other hand, is a community arises between blogs linked by a common passion or topic. In this community, the power is distributed across all the blogs. Boundaried communities are collections of blogs and blog readers hosted on a single site or platform such as discussion boards or social networks.

The blog Global Voices portrayed the criteria’s of a Boundaried Community. For example; Global Voices allow non registrants to view, but only registrants are allowed to post and comment. In Global Voices, members have some level of customization options but the site administrator has the ultimate power to control or even delete blogs. As explained by White (2008), Boundaried community is a platform centrally hosted and controlled by the ‘owner’, he who imposes the rules in the community. Even before registration and log-in, boundaries are clearly defined.

Adelaine

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Reference List

White, N 2006, ‘Blogs and Community—launching a new paradigm for online community?’, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 22 August 2011, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community