Network Inequality and the Structure of Online Communities

The author discusses the structure of virtual communities existing within the social network site «VK» from the perspective of social inequality and the issue of “digital divide”. The analysis of the structure of online groups formed around HIV/AIDS topic shows that despite the infrastructure factors of a social media platform and consolidating nature of communities the participants’ hierarchy is based on two key resources — the attention and social capital. These resources are distributed extremely unequally according to a power law, and it leads to significant differentiation of users. Thus, social inequality appears in online communities in the form of a network inequality. From the viewpoint of “digital divide” theory the network inequality can be interpreted as a third, deeper level of the digital divide of society.