Social distancing close together: the rhizomatic role of WhatsApp in communities – a proposed research framework

Abstract

As covid-19 hits its peak, people who are not in close physical proximity but who do communicate regularly on social platforms such as WhatsApp groups often claim to feel a sense of closeness to others. This paper will consider the features and functioning for WhatsApp groups in terms of Preece’s (2000) characteristics of a virtual community: people, purpose, politics and computer systems, and filter them through Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) six principles of the rhizome: connectedness, heterogeneity, multiplicity, asignifying rupture, cartography and decalcomania to see the relationship between the principles of the rhizome and the sense of closeness in a virtual community. Finally, a six by four matrix is proposed for the analysis of various aspects of virtual communities.