‘Feel like going online?’ Internet mediated communication in Portugal

Abstract

Following the analysis presented by authors such as Manuel Castells and James Slevin, this paper intends to contribute towards the debate on the use of Internet mediated communication (IMC). This paper argues that the relational structure being built through IMC is the network. A network of relations, of weaker or intimate ties occurring in environments more structured — virtual communities — or less structured — conversational spaces — in a permanent interaction between the online and offline spaces. The paper begins by outlining some contemporary debates about the use of IMC. It then presents data gathered through a national survey conducted in Portugal on Internet users in the ccTLD .pt.1 Next it argues that IMC seems to implement the creation of meeting places for socialization whose structure is the result of the social life dimensions more cherished by the users in a certain period of their lives—be it professional interests, entertainment or the search for relationships (friendship, conviviality, love) — and of their representations on the use of different kinds of IMC. In that way, forms of human association on the Internet are not jeopardizing those of the spaces not mediated by the Internet, since the communication does not confine itself to the Internet space, but it seems to be rather established beyond it.