ABSTRACT
As the Internet has developed, and as our knowledge of how people relate to the Internet and use its facilities has grown, so we begin to see the effect of the Internet on the user as something potentially greater than a passive means of quickly and cheaply transmitting information between points. Communication on the Internet can go beyond the simple passivity that receipt of information implies to embrace emotional and social factors more usually associated with real-life communication. Even though for the moment person-to-person communication on the Internet is largely text-based, and therefore apparently limited in comparison with more usual face-to-face communication, there is a sense in which the process of passage of that information can generate a sense of group membership, the development of social networks, and the generation of a sense of community. Thus communication using Internet structures can go beyond the instrumentality implied by information exchange. The creation of social space, groups and communities are terms we use to refer to the consequences of going beyond information exchange to embrace social and emotional factors.
