Imagined Online Communities: Communionship, Sovereignty, and Inclusiveness in Facebook Groups

Through Facebook "Group" feature, users often sensitize communionships, join different Facebook groups, and establish imagined communities with known people and strangers. In our interview study with 32 admins and users of Facebook groups, we explored the influential factors of such communionships, the challenges the Facebook group admins face while managing these communities, and how they resolve those. Our findings show that admins set rules for the entry and maintenance of the groups, monitor members' activities, and often limit their actions or mute them during conflicts. Thus, the members and admins of the groups together grow a sensibility of sovereignty within the community on Facebook. While the imagined sovereignty in Facebook groups is empowering, this empowerment may not be perceived and…