Communities and Events

Nearly two months ago I posted a blog on my research and that research now is finished! It was on the subject of experiencing events and the influence an online community can have on that experience. At that time I was busy building an online community for the Highlands blues festival, which is now a fact; blueslife.nl. We wanted to have a solid theory to give structure to the online community. So we based that online community on the theory that experience consists of four vital aspects; socialisation, fun, education and signification. We tried to represent those assets in the form of a wiki page, a forum and the possibility to make a profile and to communicate with each other throughout the whole community. We launched this community a month for the festival took place, and that may have been a bit too late for a community to fully flourish. On May 16th, the date of the actual festival, blueslife.nl had a member count of 60.

tagged with: communities, events, experience

Online communities and event experience

As a graduate student working at the CrossmediaLab the focus of my research project lies on the influence a community might have on the experience of an event. We are trying to find out if participation on a community website, regarding an upcoming event, makes the experience of the actual event and the memories of it in any way different. This would be in comparison to the experience of visitors who did not participate in the online community. The actual research question is formulated as such: “Does participation in a online community contribute to the experience of an offline event.” This research is part of the Crossmedia Atelier project.

tagged with: highlands, research, experience