Comunidades Virtuais do Orkut: debate acerca da educação física escolar.

Online communities on the internet are a current phenomenon. They are sources of research and access to social discourses. This paper has the objective of analyzing discourses in two virtual communities: "I love physical education" and "I hate physical education" on Orkut social networking site. The paper analyzes the way internet users understand physical education classes at school and the signifiers that they attribute to the body and corporal practices. The methodological procedure consisted of a bibliografical survey and a field research based on ethnography principles characterizing a mainly qualitative discussion. The results are: the participants of the community "I hate physical education" use the virtual space for debates and complaints about physical education classes at school. We realized that in "I love physical education" communities, users use the space mainly for advertisements. The signifiers attributed to the body and the corporal practices by the participants in both communities are related to sports practice and physical activities with being healthy. On the other hand, the concept of corporal beauty has as reference the body form and images of athletes and famous people in the mass media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]