The Case for Community in Online Spaces

This book illustrates how community and connection have changed over time and how they are currently thriving in the online world. Brooke Dunbar-Treadwell offers support and examples from research, society, and pop culture to address how online spaces can bring us a sense of community if we choose connection.

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Many believe that our sense of community is dying as the result of our digitized world. In this book, Brooke Dunbar-Treadwell refutes this claim and presents a case that connection is thriving in online spaces as people share stories, practice vulnerability, and build communities. From memes to Reddit to Facebook, Dunbar-Treadwell offers perspectives that combine relevant scholarship with examples from her research, pop culture, and society. She addresses some of the factors that contribute to disconnection like political division and dehumanization, while also painting a picture of a society that desperately desires connection and may not always know how to find it. Ultimately, this book illustrates how community and connection have changed over time, how they are currently alive and well, while offering some important practical advice for how readers can consider their own choices in online spaces to help them find the community that they seek. Scholars of communication, media studies, and political science will find this book of particular interest.