Informal learning and identity formation: a case study of an Italian virtual community

According to the Convergence Culture paradigm, in modern times, characterized by Web 2.0 technologies and the Digital Revolution, Virtual Communities are widely spreading. Virtual Communities are groups of people who share interests and passions, getting in touch through the Net. Usually a Virtual Community sprang up around a project: people contribute to develop the project, contemporarily building interpersonal relationships with other members. Virtual groups could be considered a concrete example of collective intelligence: they are informal learning environments based on knowledge exchange and effective fields of identity building processes. Research goal of this paper is to analyze the relational dynamics and the identity-formation processes of one of the most important Italian Virtual Communities: ItalianSubsAddicted. The research adopted a Case Study Methodology with a Mixed Method approach, i.e. through a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques in data collection and analysis; specifically, content analysis of official Community documents and in-depth interviews to 15 Community members. Finding shows that the Community experience is an important source of cultural enrichment: it offers to people, totally different for personal and social features, educational paths and work conditions, the possibility to interact, share opinions and confront each other. Community experience also makes people develop different skills, in particular linguistic and interpersonal skills, like collaborative problem solving and conflict management. Thus, virtual Communities could be considered as fields of informal learning and skills acquisition. Sharing passions overtakes every geographic, social and cultural barrier. Cultural diversity allows each person to leave parochialism behind and get a new and richer identity.