Community Archetypes: An Empirical Framework for Guiding Research Methodologies to Reflect User Experiences of Sense of Virtual Community

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Community Archetypes framework based on empirical research on Reddit, aiming to guide methodological choices and develop tools that better reflect and support users' sense of virtual community.

Contribution

It presents a novel framework identifying five distinct community archetypes, informing research methods and community support tools aligned with user experiences of SOVC.

Findings

Five distinct Community Archetypes identified

Research methods can broadly reflect users' SOVC

Framework supports designing more user-centered community tools

Abstract

Humans need a sense of community (SOC), and social media platforms afford opportunities to address this need by providing users with a sense of virtual community (SOVC). This paper explores SOVC on Reddit and is motivated by two goals: (1) providing researchers with an excellent resource for methodological decisions in studies of Reddit communities; and (2) creating the foundation for a new class of research methods and community support tools that reflect users' experiences of SOVC. To ensure that methods are respectfully and ethically designed in service and accountability to impacted communities, our work takes a qualitative, community-centered approach by engaging with two key stakeholder groups. First, we interviewed 21 researchers to understand how they study "community" on Reddit. Second, we surveyed 12 subreddits to gain insight into user experiences of SOVC. Results show that some research methods can broadly reflect users' SOVC regardless of the topic or type of subreddit. However, user responses also evidenced the existence of five distinct Community Archetypes: Topical Q&A, Learning & Perspective Broadening, Social Support, Content Generation, and Affiliation with an Entity. We offer the Community Archetypes framework to support future work in designing methods that align more closely with user experiences of SOVC and to create community support tools that can meaningfully nourish the human need for SOC/SOVC in our modern world.