Community

Sophie Rossetti 13090191

DMS 302 

Week 11:

Community

The term 'community' has broad and varied definitions, depending on whether it is physical or virtual, purposeful or random, and also changes according to the culture it is present within. According to Van Vliet and Burgers, communities usually occupy one (or more) of 4 realms; "social", "political", "economic" and "cultural". These realms share the elements of "social interaction, shared values, and a shared symbol system" that define them as a community (Van Vliet & Burgers, 1987). At the moment there seems to be two main categories of community; geographic and ideological (Brand, 2010). However we are already seeing those distinctions becoming less important, and in the future, the same 'sense of community' found in geographic communities will be found in ideological communities brought together through computer-mediated communication (CMC).

McMillan and Chavis believe this 'sense of community' comes from participants perceiving "feelings of membership and influence" as well as "integration and fulfilment of needs" and, most importantly, a "shared emotional connection" (Chavis, Hogge, McMillan, & Wandersman, 1986). Communities formed via CMC that promote these elements extend beyond the label of 'virtual groups' into the realm of 'virtual communities'. Social networking sites are one example of this, though there has been some debate over how much of this 'emotional connection' is shallow and farcical, and whether these sites promote egotism on an equal level with membership and participation.

When it comes to videogames, since their inception there have been close-knit communities devoted to obtaining, cataloguing, personalising and sharing information about tactics, story and walkthroughs groups of fans reminiscent of Henry Jenkins' “textual poachers” ¹ (1992). More recently, with the advent of MMOGs, videogames have created a platform for virtual communities that actually occupy a virtual space, imitating 'geographic' communities. As previously stated, communities can occupy one or more of Vliet and Burgers' 4 realms, and Jeffrey Brand has fashioned an example using the World Of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) online community to demonstrate just how well videogames and virtual worlds can bring people together from all over the world:

“WoW as an Online Community

• Social Realm:

– Allows individual and group ‘campaigning’

– Allows private and group chat

– Encourages group formation & memberships

• Political Realm:

– Encourages groups to be involved in rule development

– Allows individuals and groups to ‘enforce’ rules (to a certain extent)

• Economic Realm:

– Players purchase items that they need either from the NPCs (nonplayer

characters = the computer) or from other players.

– Magical artifacts and other items can be used for trade, but the

game has a currency…GOLD (virtual gold that is :)

• Cultural Realm:

– The environment and ‘classes’ of characters played results in

shared symbolic systems and understanding of things.

• E.g. each character race has a distinctive ‘dance’….and character

classes have particular moves/powers which are understood by players

as an inherent part of the game”(Brand, 2010)

In a decade, this trend towards virtual communities should continue to increase, so long as CMC remains popular. The question of whether we will all belong to more communities or bigger communities will depend on whether we choose to expand our horizons and connect to people outside our usual preference, joining together in heterogeneous and culturally diverse groups, or if we choose to remain in our comfort zones, our “flocks” as Ethan Zuckerman believes (2010).

Video: Listening to Global Voices - Ethan Zuckerman

According to Zuckerman, "we see the people we already know and the people with similar interests to the people we already know, and we tend not to see that wider picture". This can be seen when we study the way 'Stumbleupon' delivers content to its users. It claims to be widening our horizons, and with a few clicks of the “stumble” button it becomes clear that there is a lot out there on the web that we have yet to explore, but Stumbleupon only delivers the websites that fall within user-specified categories². Similarly with internet advertising, we are increasingly being exposed to personalised ads on sites like Facebook and Google. Is this sort of behaviour isolating us from other cultures? Only time will tell.

One thing is certain, the definitions of 'foreign', 'private' and 'friend' will drastically change over the next decade, and will therefore affect the way we see communities.

"Foreign":

The increase in distribution of mobile phones and the speed at which broadband networks are becoming mobile will see us living in a connected world before we know it. Zuckerman says "there are parts of the world that are systematically cut off"(2010), but as the internet finally reaches the rest of the population, we will be faced with two paths; tribalism or the "Global Village" (McLuhan, 1964).

"Private":

If Facebook is any indication, the future of the internet is one of little to no privacy. This openness with our peers goes back to a simpler time, when we lived in close-knit communities, and relied on each other (over mass media) for our information and support. We're breaking down the barriers to our private lives, as communities move back from "Gesellschaft" to "Gemeinschaft" (Tönnies, 1887). Mark Zuckerberg has noticed the trend³, and many more companies will follow.

"Friend":

At the moment, it is reasonable to say that a large majority of social network users have people on their 'friends list' that aren't even people, let alone what they would define as  real 'friends'. When Danah Boyd undertook an investigation of social network site Friendster, they found the most common reasons for people appearing in your friends list were that they were:

"1.   Actual friends

2.    Acquaintances, family members, colleagues

3.    It would be socially inappropriate to say no because you know them

4.    Having lots of Friends makes you look popular

5.    It’s a way of indicating that you are a fan (of that person, band, product, etc.)

6.    Your list of Friends reveals who you are

7.    Their Profile is cool so being Friends makes you look cool

8.    Collecting Friends lets you see more people (Friendster)

9.    It’s the only way to see a private Profile (MySpace)

10.  Being Friends lets you see someone’s bulletins and their Friends-only blog posts (MySpace)

11.  You want them to see your bulletins, private Profile, private blog (MySpace)

12.  You can use your Friends list to find someone later

13.  It’s easier to say yes than no " (Boyd, 2006)

Will our online relationships eventually become equally or more important than our real world ones? They already are for some. Many businesses (like IBM) are leaning towards moving their offices entirely out of the physical world, fostering relationships between co-workers that have never met face to face (Reuters, 2006). One in every 8 marriages in the US are between couples who met online. It makes sense really, if the economy of EverQuest (Sony, 1999) once amounted to more than the Chinese or Indian economy (Castronova, 2001), it should be important to bolster both professional and personal relationships in the world where we are projected to spend more and more time living out or lives.

So it seems that in the vast nothingness of reality, we're all just looking for a way to sate our loneliness. When we turned to cyberspace, we were initially excited by the fountain of creativity we found there, with content flowing from all over the globe. Then we decided what we liked and what we didn't, and found others that shared these interests. We formed virtual communities. Unfortunately, we clung to these communities and rarely ventured out to see what other flocks had to offer. It now looks like we're standing at a crossroads. Will we follow the tweets of our 'friends' and their sponsors down the path of self-induced isolation, or follow explorers like Ethan Zuckerman down the road to a worldwide community, connected by CMC? Either way, the next decade will mark a revolutionary change in the meaning of the word 'community'.

APPENDIX:

1. Jenkins' model of fandom:

• Fans adopt a distinctive mode of reception: Their media consumption is not casual, to fill dead time, but instead selective and directed.
• Fandom constitutes a particular interpretive community: Fandom is fundamentally a social pursuit.
• Fandom constitutes a particular Art World with its own aesthetic standards, conventions, critical evaluation etc. But it differs from the established art world in that the materials are recycled, and therefore acts more like a counterculture.
• Fandom constitutes an alternative social community and therefore attracts minority groups. (Jenkins, 1992)

2. www.stumbleupon.com

3. Video of interview with Mark Zuckerberg at the Crunchies is available here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/3848950

Bibliography

Boyd, D. (2006, December 4). Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from First Monday: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1418/1336

Brand, J. (2010, September-December). Digital Media and Society_302. Retrieved October 26, 2010, from Bond University: http://ilearn.bond.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_22350_1%26url%3d

Castronova, E. (2001). Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier. California State University.

Chavis, D., Hogge, J., McMillan, D., & Wandersman, A. (1986). Sense of community through Brunswick's lens: A first look. Journal of Community Psychology.

Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers: television fans & participatory culture. New York: Routledge.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media. Gingko Press.

Reuters, A. (2006, October 24). IBM eyes move into Second Life ‘v-business’. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from Second Life News Center: http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2006/10/24/ibm-eyes-move-into-second-life-v-business/

Tönnies, F. (1887). Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Fues's Verlag.

Van Vliet, W., & Burgers, J. (1987). Communities in transition: From the industrial to the postindustrial era. In Neighborhood and Community Environments .

Zuckerman, E. (2010, July). Listening to global voices. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from TED Talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/ethan_zuckerman.html