Thoughts about the Definition of “Community”

In The Academic Community: A Manual for Change, Donald Hall uses the word “community” to mean a collection of people working together in a defined and formalized way. Examples include departments, committees, cabinets, etc. This is a structural definition in that community is defined by the composition of its group. The quality of the relationships within that composition may influence the success or failure of the community, but that quality is of secondary importance.

I’m not uncomfortable with this use of the word community, though I prefer an alternative, qualitative definition: community is defined by the quality or state of interactions between people who are working together. There may a composition to the community (i.e., structural boundaries that define the community) but those boundaries are of secondary importance.

This distinction between structural and qualitative definitions is analogous to John Stewart’s distinction in his interpersonal communication textbook Bridges Not Walls. Conventionally, “interpersonal communication” is sometimes defined as communication that occurs in settings with two or three individuals. This is a quantitative description that defines the communication by the structure of the interaction (two or more individuals). In that sense, it’s analogous to the conventional structural definition of community.

Stewart contrasts the conventional view with a definition of interpersonal communication as the type of communication interactions that foster a sense of personal connection with others. In that sense, it’s analogous to the alternative, qualitative definition of community.

So, in sum, conventional definitions describe interpersonal communication by the number of people involved; Stewart’s definition (on the other hand) describes interpersonal communication by the type of interaction. Similarly, conventional definitions define community by the structural characteristics of a group of people; my suggested definition (borrowing from Stewart) defines community by the type of interaction of the group.

citations:

• Donald E. Hall. The Academic Community: A Manual for Change. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 2007.
• John Stewart. Bridges Not Walls: A Book about Interpersonal Communication. 11th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2012.