Mooing Till the Cows Come Home

Abstract

As social beings, we strive to obtain a sense of community in our lives. Place-based communities have been seen as the main source sense of community. Today, however, place-based communities do not always meet this need. Individuals may feel isolated and alienated within their place-based communities. Large cities, by virtue of their size alone, may not offer the idealized sense of community associated in people’s minds with small villages and towns. What are the alternatives? One arena in which people are experimenting with new forms of community is cyberspace. Communication technology advances have enabled the establishment of virtual environments where geographically dispersed individuals interact to form communities.