From Virtual Communities to Research on Virtuality: Emerging Concepts and Research Challenges—Ethnographic Research in the Digital Age

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the formation and composition of “regions” as places of care, both empirically and conceptually.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on action-oriented research involving experiments aimed at designing, implementing and evaluating promising solutions to the entwined problems of a burgeoning elderly population and an increasing shortage of medical staff. It draws on ethnographic research conducted in 14 administrative areas in the Netherlands, a total of 273 in-depth interviews and over 1,000 h of observations.FindingsThis research challenges the understanding of a healthcare region as a clearly bounded topological area. It shows that organizations and professionals collaborate in a variety of different networks, some conterminous with the administrative region established by policymakers and others not. These networks are by nature unstable and dynamic. Attempts to form new regional collaborations with neighbouring organizations are complicated by existing healthcare governance and accountability structures that position organizations as competitors.Practical implicationsPolicymakers should take the pre-established partnerships of healthcare organizations into account before delineating the area in which regionalization is meant to take place. A better alignment of governance and accountability structures is also needed for regionalization to occur in healthcare.Originality/valueThis paper combines insights from valuation studies with sociogeographical literature and provides a framework for understanding the assembling and disassembling of “regions”.

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Virtual Communities as a Social and Cultural Phenomenon

Journal of Education and Learning ◽

10.5539/jel.v5n3p149 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 149 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bunyamin Atici

Keyword(s):

Virtual Communities ◽

Real Life ◽

Virtual Community ◽

Ethnographic Research ◽

Cultural Phenomenon ◽

The People ◽

Social Sharing ◽

Communication And Technology ◽

Depth Interviews ◽

Technology Area

<p>The developments which were experienced in the communication and technology area made internet an important part of the daily life. In this respect, the virtual communities are in prominent place which are insulated from the time and place. In the study, Hakkarim.net is researched that formed our subject as one of the most different examples of these virtual communities. A qualitative research which is based on the observation fundamentally and richened with a survey and in-depth interviews is carried out in accordance with the ethnographic research which is used in this study. The behavior-oriented observations are performed and the oral reports are arranged with the requirements that the research is performed in the natural environment. In the research, the participants define being member of Hakkarim.net which they turned into a social sharing network and virtual community as commitment, unrequited love, happiness, belonging and entertainment respectively. The findings show that the persons in Hakkarim.net were expressing the everything they could not find in the real life, women, chats, words and dreams in this geography in which the people struggle with the problems such as terror, unemployment, violence and the feeling of being marginalized for years in Turkey.</p>

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’Tis the Company

Cultural Sustainabilities ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252042362.003.0014 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 174-182

Keyword(s):

Virtual Communities ◽

Local Community ◽

Electronic Devices ◽

Digital Age ◽

Traditional Music ◽

Personal Style ◽

Social Nature ◽

The Social ◽

Irish Traditional Music

This chapter presents a series of vignettes concerning contemporary uilleann piping, the social nature of tune transmission, the persistence of personal style, and tradition as conversation. It starts from the premise that Irish traditional music offers the possibility of enacting the value of neighbourliness through musical and social grooves, and considers how this plays out in a world of electronic devices, externalized memory, virtual communities, and commodified sound. How do players of Irish traditional music create sustainable local community in the digital age? How does conversation survive being stuffed down a wire?

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