Gritsenko, Vladimir. "Interaction on online forums and group communication: a case study of an IT support community." Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 236 (2016): 14-24.

This study explores whether discussion threads on an IT user forum can be classified as group communication according to traditional scholarly definitions. Through qualitative content analysis and interviews, it finds that threads focused on non-mainstream issues exhibit all five characteristics of face-to-face group work: size, interdependence, task, identity, and norms. Despite certain limitations inherent to online interactions, the study concludes that these discussion threads qualify as genuine group communication.