Abstract
Over the years, there has been an increase in the study of virtual communities, with the aim to contextualize them, engage their work and somewhat justify their place in the study of community and society. However, this work has mostly taken place in the global north, and very little effort has been put into their study in the global South, this has meant that all the work in the global South thereof has been based on the findings from the global north, which exist in a particular setting.This all happens despite the fact that statistics have proven that not only do South Africans spend a lot of their time on the internet,but that they are also actively part social media and virtual communities. This work uses participant observation to contextualize virtual communities in the South African context. It achieves this through engaging a popular virtual community known as ‘1 Family 1 Stockpile’ on Facebook. This study finds that the information in virtual communities in South Africa is a valuable commodity, which is characterized by convenience, a sense of community guided by the principles of Ubuntu, trust and that the information is shared without gatekeeping. Despite the success of the virtual communities and the manner in which they supplement information sharing in South Africa, due to the digital divide in South Africa, many people continue to be left out of the virtual communities and therefore cannot benefit from these.This work recommends that South Africa recognizes these communities as tools of information, this also means that there is also a need to invest in the infrastructure, tools and skills to ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from these.