In the wake of such erosion, community, on the one hand, retreats to
micro-communities, and, on the other hand, reaches out to more and
more global forms of cosmopolitan integration. Such a re-spatialization of
community makes it very difficult for Tönnies’ Gemeinschaftor even the
imagined community of the nation-state (Anderson, 1983) to persist.^4
In a review of the different definitions of community that have
appeared over the last fifty years, Ken Dempsey (1998) points to two char-
acteristics which keep returning: first, having the social ties in common
that produce a high degree of social solidarity (a structural characteristic);
and, second, the experience of belonging together. As Dempsey points
out, problems begin when we insist that both characteristics have to be
present in order for community to exist:... it is possible for the objective (or structural) characteristics of community
to be present and the subjective characteristics to be absent. People may
be linked by social ties of interdependence and yet have no sense of
belonging together. It is also possible for the opposite to be true: for people
who do not know one another, to have a sense of belonging together. (141)The fact that the objective and subjective components of community
are rarely in alignment, in a globalized world in which the relationship
between language, religion and place is becoming increasingly arbitrary
and cosmopolitan, suggests that other bases for community can come to
the fore. From a Durkheimian point of view, all individuals need to be
socially integrated in some way or another. How this occurs may vary
enormously between individuals and according to the place in which they
live, including the new ‘places’ that are able to come into existence, such
as cyberspace.
However, it is increasingly clear in media societies that tradition and
belief, or a conscience collective, are no longer an organizing basis for com-
munity. Through mediums and rituals, it has become quite orthodox for
people who do not know one another to have a sense of belonging
together in a mediated ceremony. In addition, the advent of cyberspace
introduces the prospect that communities of place are not just geographi-
cal, and it also facilitates the possibility of meeting nearly everyone who
has the same interest as you and is also connected to the Internet, wher-
ever they are located.
However, the content of beliefs and interests is only one component
of Durkheim’s original description of the conscience collective. He also
specified intensity – the intimacy of interactions, volume, the number of
people enveloped by the interactions – and rigidity – the regularity and
adherence of these interactions. This also means that social integration is
very much based on the practice of interaction, not just on what it signi-
fies. When we routinize our interaction with others and with the mediums
through which we conduct such interactions, we create a world around us
which becomes very familiar to us, regardless of what the content of ourTelecommunity 175Holmes-06.qxd 2/15/2005 1:03 PM Page 175