What is an Online Community? Conceptual and Methodological Considerations

The proliferation and importance of online communities have created an expansive research terrain for literacy research. Within a networked communication landscape located within and across platforms, designing studies of online communities presents methodological challenges, foremost of which is how to define and operationalize online communities. In this conceptual article, we explore interdisciplinary definitions of online communities and outline three constructs regarding literacy research about online communities: (1) spatiality: how online communities are constituted in virtual space, (2) reliability: how human subjects are composed online, and (3) temporality: how the passage of time blurs the boundaries between public and private data online. We discuss these constructs and the tensions they present for research about online communities in a postdigital era, explore implications for the study of literacy across various populations and global locations, and propose recommendations and questions for literacy researchers to consider in designing and conducting studies about online communities.