What is a virtual community?? Did we ever answer this?
This is my definition of a virtual community. I really am not sure if it is right or not. I thought I knew what a virtual community was before going to class yesterday, but was more questionable after class was dismissed. But, going off my thoughts of what a virtual community is I can say there are several that I am involved in. One of these I would say is Facebook and another our class blogs, for this class as well as those of us in 375. I thought for sure these were virtual communities. But maybe I'm wrong. Ill get to that a little later on.
First, what sort of barriers are there to these communities?? Well, if someone is not in the DTC 475 class, they are not part of our blogging community. They may come across one or more of our blogs, but that doesn't make them a part of it. Being in the class is one barrier. Also, if I do not accept your friend request on Facebook, then you are not going to be part of MY community. You may be part of the overall Facebook community, but you will be left out of my personal sub community I guess you could call it. This, sub community, including people I know in real life. Another thing is a common interest. If you just plain don't want to be a part of a social network like Facebook, then you won't create a profile, which will keep you out of the know of Facebook. I think the biggest barrier of virtual communities though is competence. Just because you have the technology, doesn't mean you know how to use it. Like my dad, for instance, has a computer, knows how to check his e-mail, that's all. Without the knowledge of how to use a computer and look things up on the web, the computer is not much good. This is where the digital divide line comes into play. And personally I think a generation gap is part of the reason for the line.
So, I say I am part of the 'virtual community' of Facebook, and Myspace as well. But are these really virtual communities? If all the people I am friends with on these social networking sites are people I know in real life, does that make it a virtual community or simply a new medium for which to communicate with my real life friends and family?? I think they are virtual communities. It is a group of people with the common interest of socializing, communicating via the internet. I personally don't feel that just because you may meet in real life, or have already met in real life, takes away the idea of something being a virtual community. I'm just sayin.
I think the strength of it being simply a virtual community is lowered if the people who are in a virtual community are also actively communicating in person. For example, I have friends that I don't see anymore, and I use facebook to keep in touch, so it's more of a medium in that example, but I have friends that are purely from playing games, so perhaps they are a stronger example of belonging to a virtual community.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly makes the communities you've described virtual communities rather than simply an extension of the physical world? That's the important part, the distinction between the two. Facebook is a tool, your friends interacting in your space there would be a community, but is it actually a virtual community if those are people you interact with similarly in the physical world? Of course a virtual community may include meetings in physical space, just as a real life community may include meeting in virtual space. So...where does one make the distinction?
ReplyDeleteI agree. Our last lecture made me analyze virtual communites in a new way. Are we simply using a technological tool to communicate with our already established community(friends and family)? If this is the case that would mean a virtual community is a group of 2 or more people sharing common interests, communicating through certain mediums such as the internet, who have not met in "real" life, but may end up meeting in the future. However, I like the idea of a site, such as Facebook being a virtual community, and members form sub-communities with people they may or may not know in "real" life.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking this would be a good thing for me to write an essay on... I feel pretty argumentative about the subject, even if I'm wrong, lol.
ReplyDeleteI'm somewhat inclined to think that Facebook is a sub-community (the opposite of what we determined in class) because of the fact that the people in the facebook community are radically different than those people are in a physical space. I think that Facebook is not solely a representation of the physical world because of the fact that the Brandon Andersen A.S. (Associate of Science, lol) on Facebook is radically different from the Brandon Andersen in class. The Facebook Brandon can have great hair all the time, make witty comments, be popular by having nearly 500 friends, and always put his best foot forward. The DTC 475 Brandon is a bit less of a heartthrob because sometimes he has bad hair, and sometimes he smells, and sometimes he's a not-witty jerk.
Therefore the REASON Facebook is a community and not just a tool is because it is the _location_ for distinct personalities which are NOT perfectly synonymous with the people who they are representatives of. It becomes NOT just a tool when people are able to make up lies that are believed by other people in the space (even if it's a white lie about how your relationship is "complicated" when it's really really over)or when they even accidently omit details about who they are which allows for distinct personalities which do not actually have a true physical manifestation to exist in a virtual space.