One might argue that it is an unfortunate sign of our fragmented and anomie-wracked society that we are driven to try to find a way out of our loneliness through virtual communities. But the reverse argument can also be made, and that is the position taken up in this paper, that virtual communities are not a pale substitute for "real" ones but do in fact provide the kind of organic solidarity that was an essential …showed first 75 words of 1751 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1751 total…a part of a community that could never exist in RL because it spans thousands of miles and brings together those who would otherwise remain strangers to each other. Works Cited: Johnson, Steven. Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate. New York: Basic Books, 1999. Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen. New York: Touchstone, 1997.