ABSTRACT
AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors thank Julia Wood, Pamela Kalbfleisch, and Lise VanderVoort for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
Correspondence: Walter J.Carl, 101 Lake Hall, Department of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115; mailto:emailw.carl@neu.edu
Communication Yearbook 28, pp. 1-35
community, the student community, the Black community) where there is no indication of interaction among all members, merely an identification of a common membership characteristic. On the other hand, people sometimes use the word community to imply common rights, common interest, or common habitat with an implication that patterns of interaction may exist as a result (this retirement community, the neighborhood community, the local community). The word community is also used to mean fellowship, common fate, or mutual interest in the good of each person (a supportive community). Then the word can also be used to denote the associates of a specific person as a network of real and actively connected relationships, whether or not there is any intimacy among them: “When he died the word spread rapidly through his community.” Finally, the term is sometimes employed as an indication of intimacy or close-knit membership (“We are a close community”). There are other meanings also for the term as used in communication studies, where the etymological connection between “community” and “communication” is often noted as meaningful.
