Community and Trust in the Network Society. The Case of Virtual Communities

In the uncertain scenario that surrounds today’s man, there is a new need for spaces to share, to establish new relationships of mutual trust. As the new technology advances, virtual communities are one of the responses to such need. In this revolutionary media environment, one might ask how a quite strong relationship of mutual trust can be created and nurtured in a virtual community, in relation to real objective relations and to the virtual community itself, as well as the technology that makes it possible, when it is, by definition, an ever-changing system. In this respect, some issues have been found to promote such relationships and others to (un)willingly hinder it. Therefore, the concept of trust should be re-semanticised to have a new relational paradigm built on ethical grounds, in which the individual becomes aware of what resources are required to cope with the insecurity of an increasingly uncertain society, partly with the help of virtual communities. Only through a jointly responsible behaviour, aimed at filling the gap that is inherent to the very concept of (virtual) community, can one trust something else—whether an individual, a technology or the community itself—aware of the hint of “magic” that is implied in the very etymology of the concept of trust.