How Tea Shop Culture Transitioned in to Virtual Communities

Essay from the year 2018 in the subject Communications - Multimedia, Internet, New Technologies, grade: 70, Bournemouth University, course: Media and Communication, language: English, abstract: Over the past few decades, technological innovations have progressively increased connecting humans all around the world. Since the 1960s to 1990s social capital decreased due to rising technological trends with less civic engagement. But it has been replaced by social spheres where information exchange was transferred via networks. Networks constitute the new social morphology of our society, offering greater mobility; increased and linked to people rather than a physical place as argued by Castells. This networks began with the telegraph, took root with the landline and boomed into complexity from satellites to television to the internet as discussed by Ling and Donner. From the early 1990s, a new type of sociality emerged called virtual communities. Virtual communities are formed when individuals interact through social media platforms, potentially crossing geographical borders and political barriers and pursue a kinship with mutual interests and goals. This case study is an academic paper of understanding the transition of human interaction with the aid of internet technologies, with the focus group of Malayalam Twitterati.