Summary: | The purpose of this essay was to investigate how a functional and committed online community was established. We have analyzed a Facebook group named "On Edge - a community for girls who seeks adventures" to explore how On Edge is communicating to create dedication and identification amongst its members in their online community. The study has combined theories such as social identity theory, prosumption, participatory culture and mediatization theory. We have used a multimodal analysis to analyze the administrators and the members posts on Facebook, an online survey for On Edge’s members to answer and an interview with the founder of the community, Ebba Cronqvist. The result of the multimodal analysis showed that On Edge uses text and images to create a united language within the group that leads to dedication and identification to the community. The survey showed that most of the members felt a need of a place where adventurous women could meet other women who are alike. They help each other because of the friendly atmosphere and by the meaningful exchange of thoughts and minds. We also found that there are some fundamental forces that shapes On Edge to such a well working community: the group is driven by a strong “why”, and by using a language appropriate for the target group together with images, it creates a friendly atmosphere amongst the members in the group.
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