This wide-ranging introductory text looks at the virtual community of cyberspace and analyzes its relationship to the real one as lived out in today's societies. Such issues as race, gender, power, economics and ethics in cyberspace are discussed by the leading experts on the subject of the Internet, grouped under four main sections: identity; social order and control; community structure and dynamics; and collective action. The book displays how the idea of community is being challenged and rewritten by the increasing power and range of cyberspace. As new societies and relationships are formed in this virtual landscape, we are now having to consider the potential consequences this might have on our own community and societies.;The text should appeal to students and professionals, but also to those concerned about the changing relationships between information technology and a society which is fast becoming divided between those on-line and those not.

This book looks at what the communities we create in Cyberspace reveal about what "community" means to us. In a wide ranging introduction to the internet, leading experts discuss such issues as:
* race
* sex
* gender
* power
* economics and ethics in cyberspace.
It shows how the idea of community is being challenged and rewritten by the increasing power and range of the internet.