Miriam Gauffin and Beatrice Johansson

Online event - A participant study on how online event should be designed

Abstract

At all times people have socialized in groups and felt the need to be involved in some type of community and togetherness. As media technology has evolved, parts of the physical community has moved to the Internet and have been supplemented by a virtual community. A relatively new phenomenon, online event, has occurred in social media. An online event means that people with similar interests meet over the Internet and watch and/or socialize around something that interests them. This essay aims to examine how an online event organized on Facebook should be designed so that the participants experience will be as good as possible. The essay problem reads:

"How should an online event be designed for its participants to experience the event as successful and well managed?"

In order to answer the essay problem we conducted a literature review, five observations of different online events, two focus groups and a survey with people who had participated in online events. In the conclusion a model for classification of online events with recommendations for how the model's various categories of online events should be constructed is presented. It is suggested that the purpose of the event should control its form and structure as different online events should be structured in different ways. In general, for all types of events aiming to create inclusion and a social community it is important to have active participants, that the technology works, that there is access to instant messaging and that a moderator is in place.