ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the conceptualisation of community through an environmental approach and presents examples from the herper community case study on how these ideas are enacted as a research methodology, from design and data collection to data analysis and research reporting. It also discusses the connections evident in the research literature between community studies and research into the social adoption and appropriation of communication technologies. The research design employed a mixed-method approach of semi-structured interviews conducted during participant observation and a quantitative online survey. The connection in this environmental approach to describing digital community with current theorisation of media ecologies and communicative ecologies, but also acknowledges its debt to the Chicago school scholars who advanced the discipline of Human Ecology.
