"Let Us Talk to People, Not to Computers": Obstacles for Establishing Relationships and Trust in Social Workers’ Online Communities of Practice

Abstract

The paper studies social workers’ online communities of practice and presents the perceptions of their members about such online communities’ potential for establishing relationships and trust. The interviewees expressed three main clusters of reasons for why relationships and trust cannot be properly established and sustained through online communities of practice. These reasons involve general hostility to computer-mediated communication as an arena for relationship development, the non-computerized professional environment of social workers, and particular features of the communities that were studied.