IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zna/indecs/v2y2004i1p126-135.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards quantitative tools for analysing qualitative properties of virtual communities

Author

Listed:
  • Duje Bonacci

    (Rudjer Boskovic Institute)

Abstract

During the last decade, the advance of Internet has enabled the emergence of previously nonexistent type of human social structures - virtual 'online' communities. As compared to the traditional communities, online communities are distinguished by the drastic reduction of the requirement for the physical proximity and geographical clustering of their members. The primary cause of this shift away from 'physically concentrated' communities to dispersed virtual ones is new long distance communication tools that Internet has provided. Along with the increase in quantity of communication that the new technology brought about, it also strongly influenced its quality. The paper suggests two simple mathematical tools for analysing the 'soft' (qualitative) sociological internal properties of virtual communities. The suggested tools are applied and their utility discussed on the example of one such virtual community, Croatian NGO 'Society znanost.org'. Classification-ACM-1998: J.4; Social and behavioral sciences - Sociology

Suggested Citation

  • Duje Bonacci, 2004. "Towards quantitative tools for analysing qualitative properties of virtual communities," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 2(2), pages 126-135.
    • Handle: RePEc:zna:indecs:v:2:y:2004:i:1:p:126-135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://indecs.eu/2004/indecs2004-pp126-135.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2001. "Zipf's Law for Cities and Beyond: The Case of Denmark," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 123-146, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sokołowski Dariusz & Jażdżewska Iwona, 2021. "Zipf's Law for cities: estimation of regression function parameters based on the weight of American urban areas and Polish towns," Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series, Sciendo, vol. 53(53), pages 147-156, September.
    2. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro & Palestrini, Antonio, 2003. "On the size distribution of firms: additional evidence from the G7 countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 117-123.
    3. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2019. "Firm-size distribution in Poland – is power law applicable?," Lodz Economics Working Papers 3/2019, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology.
    4. Qi Li & Patrick Paul Walsh, 2009. "The Firm Size Distribution in a Small Open Economy: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 200920, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zna:indecs:v:2:y:2004:i:1:p:126-135. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Josip Stepanic (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.