At the present stage, there are research works that analyze the features of the functioning of Internet communities, analyze their fundamental characteristics, prospects and features. Part of the work is devoted to the study of national and regional segments of the Network (for example, RUnet). In addition, special attention is paid to the study of a wide range of issues that affect the impact of the Internet on changes in social institutions in modern Russia. A specific research area in the modern sociology of the Internet includes works devoted to the analysis of the Web as a special form of mass communication.Despite the fact that recently we have noted a significant increase in the number of works that address the topic of the functioning of social structures on the Internet, researchers from different regions and countries emphasize that the study of this issue is only at the stage of development and formation. It is noteworthy that the novelty of the work «Network nation: computer-mediated human communications» (Starr R. Hiltz, M. Taroff) was fully noted only at the end of the 20th - beginning of the 21st century. At the time of the publication of the study, its authors characterized the first signs of only the emerging social structure of a new phenomenon.