Virtual Community Management Research Based On Three Entities

With the widespread application of Internet, virtual communities provide a new way of life for people. In such an open virtual space, people with common needs or preferences gathered together to form long-term maintenance network community. As improving the level of virtual community management tasks proposed, virtual community as an integral part of the virtual society is bound to consider how to improve the management level.The members of the community, information, management practices, ethical, network technology and other factors constitute elements of the virtual community. The interaction between these elements affects the stability and development of virtual communities. A single management entity cannot achieve a comprehensive and effective management of these elements in virtual community management process. Diversified multi-level management based on Governance Theory is the current virtual community management model. China’s virtual community management presents the situation of co-management of the three entities. These three entities are: the government, the virtual community builders, virtual community members. In this thesis, Government Control Theory, Game Theory and Civil Society Theory are used to deeply analyze the three entities respectively. Government management of virtual communities is more out of control of the entire virtual social order, mainly in the formulation of a series of Internet laws and regulations and the Internet public opinion monitoring on purpose. The virtual community builders focus on providing and improving community services and facilities in order to create a good atmosphere of community. On the one hand, Management of virtual community has to comply with governmental authority. On the other hand, the builders pursue their own interests. In the game process of the authority and interests, the virtual community builders find the equilibrium point between of government regulation and the practical needs of community members. Virtual community members form a small civil society, Autonomy constrain the behavior of participants and deal with daily affairs of the community to protect the stability of communities. The scope of management between the three entities is not entirely separate. There is some overlap and cross. Therefore, there will inevitably be some conflicts and problems in the management process.In this thesis, after analyzing the main responsibilities of the three entities of virtual community management, Tianya Community is took for an example to analyze the practical management status of the three entities. Then,"customer complaints" section and "the duty editor reconsideration special issue" are selected to be analyzed by statistics and observation. They can reflect shortage in the three entities management, through which some of the problems in the management process of the Community are found. First of all, to some extent, community builders are lack of providing and improving the user’s exchange mechanism continuous. Secondly, in the autonomy of the community, the transaction flow is unidirectional. And, the transaction processing standards the moderators use are inconsistent. Beyond that, a few moderators are abuse of power. Finally, the vertical level among government, community builders and community members are too strict. It tends to be a one-way command communication. Community members as a major contributor to community content are lack of the right to speak. Community builders and community members as a high degree of interest do not achieve a good cooperation.Direct at various shortages in Tianya Community management, combined with the characteristics of virtual community in China and its impact on social reality, this thesis propose the way to optimize management level from the angle of three entities respectively and the way of optimizing coordination and management of three entities.