The growth and decline of the peak oil paradigm: The lifecycle of 'The Oil Drum' online community

Abstract

The internal dynamics of internet communities have become an important area of recent study. Interest-based groups such as brand and fan communities have strong marketing implications. To date, however, there is little work taking a longitudinal perspective to understand how online communities form, grow, mature and disband. Our research considers these dynamics through the entire lifespan of The Oil Drum (TOD) community as it explored peak oil issues. We consider TOD as a community based around a dominant paradigm (Kuhn 1962), and show decline in engagement as anomalies around the peak oil paradigm began to accumulate. The analysis demonstrates that the rich data available on the website is amenable to qualitative and content analysis, as well as quantitative analysis approaches. We conclude with suggested methodologies and a brief research agenda that can take advantage of the unique data available from TheOilDrum.com, thereby providing insights into the broader universe of online communities.