Community psychology of online volunteering: outlook and actions

This is an interactive and participant-driven presentation aimed at developing a co-constructed outlook into the future for community psychology of online volunteering. Online volunteering is a new form of volunteering in which the volunteer action occurs via internet and social medias. Considering the increasing connectedness characterizing individuals’ daily lives and relationships, online volunteering represents one of the emerging elements defining local-real and virtual communities. Despite its spreading, there is a dearth of knowledge on how online volunteering can influence community dynamics. In turn, questions on how community psychologist can situate on this topic remain open. To co-construct a vision of community-related practices in online volunteering, we discuss existing perspectives in the literature and our experiences with online volunteers in previous qualitative data collections. We continue with a series of questions to guide the discussion with presentation participants: Which seem to be the emerging themes in online volunteering from a community psychology perspective? Which are the characteristics of this form of volunteering that can contribute to community development? Which actions community psychology can do for understanding and contributing to local-real and virtual communities?