Social Interaction In Virtual Community

The advent of internet in 1980's is bringing people a newly mysterious world where people can experience the so-called digitalized life. In internet, there are many public spheres where netizens can interact with each other, sharing common interest, hobbies or feelings. These public spheres are called virtual communities. The virtuality of virtual community differs from the reality of people's real life tremendously. Therefore, interactions between netizens appear mysterious and unknown to majority of people.This paper chooses the interaction on the Han Wang BBS, a virtual community on line, as research object. By observing and participating in the HanWang netizens' interaction, I recorded the HanWang BBS netizens' Middle Autumn Festival interactions online and offline in Shanghai 2006. By means of analyzing the Middle Autumn Festival interactions and with the theory of social interaction by Sanders, an American sociologist, I try to explain why virtual community comes into being and to explore some characteristics of virtual community interactions between netizens.The impact internet put on human beings is great and virtual community interaction is a brand-new form of interactions between people. New things always face both supporting and opposing attitude. Virtual community interaction is not an exception. There is still a long way to go before most of people can interact on virtual community smoothly. However, with more use of internet by people and further development of internet technology, people will get much more familiar with virtual community and find its advantage in interaction. So, we can predict virtual community interaction has a promising future.The paper is composed of five parts. The first part is introduction in which the author reviews the relevant researches at home and abroad and puts forward the research framework and methodology. In the second part, the author describes generally the Hang Wang BBS and the netizens' interactions. In the third part, the author recorded the whole process of the Middle Autumn Festival in Shanghai 2006. The fourth part explains why virtual community can exist and explores some characteristics of virtual community interaction. The last part is to discuss the research annotation and reflection.