Online communities serving territorial communities: the M8 case study

The past two decades have witnessed many experiments directing Internet technologies to neighbourhood and online community. Following this lead, the purpose of this paper is to analyse network communities (online communities organized on a specific area), serving as an engine for the development and the organization of a territory. These online communities can be managed as tools that allow a better understanding of the territory: they should be able to contribute to the creation and the proliferation of services most suited to the needs of residents. In this paper we analyse the M8 social network as a case study: M8 is built to facilitate socialization, participation and cultural growth of people who live, study or work on the District VIII of Rome. The analysis explores the existence of a possible correlation between the participation to an online community and the sense of belonging to a territorial community. Moreover, the correlation between the use of an online community and the degree of involvement in the territory is also studied.