Cloakroom communities and cyberspace

Debates about the so-called \u27virtual\u27 communities most of the time revolve around questions of disintegration, spread of cynicism, in-authenticity, and the likes. Authors that base their theories primarily on the new technologies often tend to point at the social isolation of the individual (brought by technology) which presumably leads towards increase in individualisation and has long-term devastating influences on what is traditionally thought of as community. Such outlooks are overlooking other aspects of social life and should be subject to serious criticism about technological determinism. One of the main purposes of this paper is to present a wider outlook on the new technologies through changes in production and contemporary capitalism. It is urgent to ask ourselves whether the individualised instrumental networking, which mostly forms fragile communities and offers several optional and changeable identities, is perhaps a symptom of other vast social changes in post-Fordist capitalism. Can this be seen only as a radicalization in the development of these processes? In the second part a concept of pseudo-environmental niche is proposed, which could be useful for understanding contemporary changes and reactionary communitarian responses that are proposing a return to \u27genuine\u27 communities. This is done through theorisation of \u27worldliness\u27 as lately conceived by Paolo Virno. This is followed by deconstruction of mythological aspects of community life and a proposition to revise our understanding of community. The question of community is, in the author\u27s view, an eminent question of politics