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Oldenburg and Brissett (1982) proposed third places as a solution to an apparent loss of community in American culture, arguing that these physical environments offer important opportunities for social relationships beyond work colleagues and family. The eight characteristics of traditional third places that contribute to the sociability of a third place environment include the following (Oldenburg, 1999, p. 22-41; Vaux & Langlais, in press):
Neutral: Informal settings, the primary attribute of a third place is to promote sociability.
Levelers: No membership is required; all are welcome.
Conversation Main Activity: The main activity of a third place is conversation.
Accessibility and Accommodation: Third places are physical locations easily accessed in a user’s daily routine.
Regulars: Third places are often frequented as a customary practice so that individuals are known to one another.
Low Profile: Third places are ordinary physical environments.
Playful Mood: Playful banter keeps conversation light and friendly.
Home Away from Home: Third places are a home away from home for patrons.
Physical environments that meet a majority of these characteristics are representative of a third place (Vaux, 2014; Waxman, 2006).
The characteristics proffered by Oldenburg identify whether physical environments can be third places, but recent studies suggest that virtual environments also serve as third places. “Oldenburg’s conceptualization [of the third place] has been used consistently to describe the communication of computer-mediated contexts such as chatrooms and multiuser environments” (Soukup, 2009, p. 421). Virtual third places are computer-generated platforms on the internet that simulate face-to-face interactions. The use of technology to communicate is not the defining factor of a virtual third place. Individuals use phones, email and texting to communicate through technology but these do not serve as third places because they are not multiuser domains where “community is formed, maintained and revitalized” (Kendall, 2002 cited in Soukup, 2009, p. 424).
This debate was initially discussed as researchers sought to understand how early virtual environments might be a new way of forming social communities (Rheingold, 1993; Wellman & Gulia, 1999; Wuthnow, 1999). For example, Putnam and Feldstein (2003) argued that communities and relationships can be built through Craigslist.com, an early internet site used to sell merchandise, meet romantic partners, or find roommates. Later, Soukup (2006) elaborated on the notion of virtual communities and suggested that they could be third places. He states, “Computer networks can provide the means to create new ‘virtual’ places that offer functionally similar forms of localized informal interaction” (p. 438). Subsequently, a number of studies have identified virtual environments that can also be third places. For instance, McArthur and White (2016) introduced how conversations on Twitter are representative of third places and Ducheneaut and Moore (2007) discussed how Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) represent third places, both using traditional third place characteristics as a measure. Essentially third places may not be limited to physical “places,” but more broadly inclusive of various “spaces,” whether virtual or physical (Purnell, 2015).