Web as community

Most of the interactive sites I visited seem to be either creation of new community or extension of existing community – most have something that binds them, whether that's networking through friends, the promise of creating community in the outside world, a common interest, or in-community constructs to keep people interested.
There is significant overlap between these kinds of communities in many sites. Myspace.com and facebook.com, are good examples of this, where users network with existing friends, but also have the opportunity to form new connections with others outside their existing network through shared interests. In the sites mostly focused on common interests, like the various Yahoo! groups, that interest could be anything from anime to a general love for sharing information, or anywhere in between.

People within these communities have an opportunity to either express their identities as they see themselves, or to create alternative identities, or any combination of the two. Either way, repeated interaction with others and consistent portrayals of oneself as anything – whether that anything is an anime fan, a member of the opposite sex, a fan of a particular band or TV show, or alternative lifestyle, whether implicit or explicit – must result, to some degree, in increased identification as that thing. I would think that this could be either healing – if a person's online identity allows him to "practice" expressing himself in ways he's not comfortable with in the real world – or alienating and fragmenting if such expression leads to a greater identification with a "false" identity and generates frustration with the confines of "RL."

On the other hand, other kinds of sites, like postsecret.com and grouphug.us, allow users to contribute, but don't offer interaction between users and so don't involve the creation of an identity in the same way. The "community" that comes from sites like these is not so much an interactive one, but maybe a disconnected collection of voyeurs and exhibitionists, or, at least, people who want to share their secrets anonymously and people who, for whatever reason, want to read other people's secrets. In some sense, although these are the least "communal" of the community sites, I kind of feel like these could be the most important to some people, allowing some to confess anonymously, while others can read those confessions and, if they identify with them, know that they are not the only ones to have experienced or done whatever it is that they have experienced or done. Maybe these could be "gateway communities," allowing people who explore the idea of online interaction in a completely safe and anonymous way, before moving to the slightly less anonymous forum-based community.

The latter variety is one that could, and does, exist elsewhere, but the complete anonymity of postsecret.com and grouphug.us would be nearly impossible to replicate offline. Support and interest groups, though, can be found for nearly everything – the internet makes them accessible to people who don't have one near them, or who wouldn't want to risk running into someone they know at a meeting geographically near them, or don't have the time to participate in something that meets only on set days at set hours. It also allows groups in different geographic areas to communicate with each other more easily.

I think overall the internet in community-building and enriching for both individuals and existing communities. There might be drawbacks if people seek out online community in lieu of offline community, but it seems unlikely to me that the internet will, ultimately, rob anyone of personal connections.


I want to add that this was one of the hardest assignments I've ever had to complete because all of the "research" for it was what I would normally call "procrastination." It was hard to stay focused.

Navel-gazing

'Bloggers are navel-gazers, and they're about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books. There's an overfascination here with self-expression, with opinion. This is opinion without expertise, without resources, without reporting' (Schachtman, 2002)

The question seems to be – Blogs: democratic or crappy? I say – why not both? One of the most important aspects of the web is that it is bidirectionally democratic. That is – anyone can create a website, certainly, but everyone else has the option to ignore that site. Maybe 90% of bloggers are navel-gazers posting self-indulgent boring drivel, but – who cares?

The blog as a phenomenon can’t be evaluated in the same terms that traditional media has been. Osder condemns bloggers on the grounds that they aren’t qualified to offer serious journalism or unparalleled expertise, but acknowledges neither the possibility those ends aren’t the goal of most bloggers nor that there might be an audience for more personal forms of expression. As John Dvorak points out, the most self-indulgent web form, the vanity page, seems to be dying (is probably dead by now) at least in part because there is no audience for these nearly content-free sites. Blogs have taken their place and found an audience.

Some blogs are boring scrapbooks. Don’t read them, unless you know the author or are a really hardcore voyeur. Some blogs offer uninformed opinion. Even the best informed opinions, though, are still opinions, and where there is no objective truth (as in those things where opinions are applicable) sometimes insights come from unlikely corners.

More than anything, Osder’s assertion displays an ignorance of the blogging phenomenon (or, given the year, perhaps just a lack of foresight). If blogs were as boring as friends’ scrapbooks, they would not have achieved the popularity they have today. Or maybe those scrapbooks aren’t as boring as Osder believes them to be. There is little room for the personal in today’s mass media, and even the one genre that comes close to showcasing the personal – reality TV – overshoots and winds up in the realm of the absurdly impersonal caricature. Blogs can fill this void, and provide some human essence in an increasingly impersonal world.

Maybe bloggers are navel-gazers, and maybe there is a fascination with self-expression and opinion. But if so, it looks like other people’s navels are interesting, and the fascination is not so disproportionate after all.

Technology Literacy Narrative

What is your earlist memory of using a computer, and what did you use it for?

There was always a computer in our home growing up (my father was, in those days, a self-employed programmer/consultant and bought an IBM XT in 1981), so I don't have a specific earliest memory. I do, however, remember being young -- maybe 4 or 5? -- and begging my dad to hook the TV up to the computer so I could play my games in color rather than in green monochrome. He would do that only occasionally, but when he did I would play with Delta Drawing and FaceMaker.

What is your earliest memory of using the internet to communicate with someone else? What was your intended purpose in that communication?

Very few people I knew had the internet when I first got access to it (1993ish), so my earliest communication memories involve things like IRC and talking to strangers. The main purpose was exploration of the new medium, but sometimes my best friend and I would go into a teenager chatroom and tell people we were thirteen (we were twelve).

How did who that person was (a friend, a relative, a teacher, etc.) shape the communication choices you made?

It was thrilling to think that we could represent ourselves any way we chose. Usually my choices were pretty tame -- like saying I was thirteen instead of twelve. I feel like my digital and "analog" identities have always been pretty integrated, and I'm not sure that my earliest communications had an effect on that either way.

What in your life (if anything) would change if you suddently were no longer able to communicate with others in digital ways?

I'd like to say something like, "I'd spend more time writing physical letters and talking on the phone," but I think the time spent on those things wouldn't increase proportionately, and my range of acquaintances would narrow. I also keep a blog and would miss it, both as an outlet for my random thoughts and a locus of community in my life.