The perception of the virtual community as a group subject by its members

In the paper a virtual community is considered from the perspective of the subjective approach to the group. The students’ perception of its virtual community, namely the level of its development as a group entity is explored. A brief literary review on the issue under study is presented; the absence of holistic theoretical knowledge in social psychology is noted on it. The results of the author's empirical research, on which the conclusion is based that virtual teams are the group entities at different levels of development, are described. With the help of the factorial analysis, the author studied substructures of the psychosocial group subject structure that influence the overall level of the development of subjectivity of a virtual group. The two most significant factors that affect the mesosubjective level of the development of a virtual community are identified - the factor of group activity and the factor of group state. The prospects of further socio-psychological research of the specifics of virtual communities are outlined.