Part 1 of Essay
Rheingold (1993) defines as "social aggregations that emerge from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace" (p. 5). According to Rheingold and others, the notion of virtual community is not to be di ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... kiss anybody and nobody can punch you in the nose, but a lot can happen within those boundaries. To the millions who have been drawn into it, the richness and vitality of computer- linked cultures is attractive, even addictive. (p. 3) Example of Virtual environment: IRC One of these rich and vital computer-linked cultures is the Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a multi-user synchronous "chat" line that was designed for social rather than business use. The IRC is comprised of various channels that indicate the subje ....