Together, Apart Community and Connection in an Online Sangha

Abstract

This thesis investigates how the online, global Zen Buddhist community, Treeleaf Zendo, facilitates its meditation sessions, social events and forum, and how the members of the community experience this communication. Through examining the different digital media used in the community, the nature of the interconnection has been studied. The methods of netnography, participant observation and semi-structured interviews, and theoretical and analytical frameworks from medium theory and thematic analysis have been used in the process. The result of the study is that while the members of Treeleaf Zendo experience a sense of community, they do it in diverse ways and use different parts of the community’s resources. Members of the community that tend to be more withdrawn use mainly recorded videos and the written forum, while members that are more outgoing tend to participate more in live broadcasted events. Through the study, the usefulness of Meyrowitz’s theoretical concepts of medium-as-language and medium-as-environment in studying online interaction has been ascertained.