From Community to Collective: Institution and Agency in the Age of Social Networks

to which the institution invests in an individual’s agency.

First, the basic motivation for interaction differs between communities and collectives. In a community, the general motive for participation is

While members of a community may be willing to give up certain rights or freedoms to belong to something larger than themselves (and reap benefits as a result), members of a collective are much more intensely focused on the affordances of a particular institution (qua collective) and are highly resistant to any loss of agency or freedom

participating. That participation allows the individual to take action that is meaningful to a larger group of people (if not aided by advice or

information from the larger group) but without the immediate sense of reciprocity that community entails. In other words, in a community,