This wide-ranging introductory text looks at the virtual community of cyberspace and analyzes its relationship to the real one as lived out in today's societies. Such issues as race, gender, power, economics and ethics in cyberspace are discussed by the leading experts on the subject of the Internet, grouped under four main sections: identity; social order and control; community structure and dynamics; and collective action. The book displays how the idea of community is being challenged and rewritten by the increasing power and range of cyberspace. As new societies and relationships are...