[ox-en] About (online) communities
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:47:01 +0200
Hi list!
16 months (497 days) ago Michel Bauwens wrote:
I may not know the dynamics of such sharing communities - BTW: are
they really communities at all? - well enough but to me it looks more
like self-realization (ending up in the individual) than
Selbstentfaltung (ending up in society). The act of sharing in these
communities is just an add-on to an otherwise very individualist
pattern. I publish my photos on Flickr because I need a place to show
them to some friends.
This is an important insight. It all depends on how you define
communities I suppose, but I believe they are generally much weaker in
sharing communities, which is why I think they seem unable to take
care of their own platforms.
Because the definition of the term community is so crucial I
reproduce a translated version of a post_ I sent to [ox-de] eight years
ago.
.. _post: http://www.oekonux.de/liste/archive/msg04048.html
It consists of an excerpt from an article in the German computer
magazine c't issue 11/2001 p.92 by Dr. Nicola Döring. The article is
about online communities ("Netzwärme im Ausverkauf --
Online-Communities zwischen Utopie und Profit"). Translation is by me.
Grüße
Stefan
=== 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< === 8< ===
...
However, since the mass access to the Internet it became clear that
the creation of virtual communities is subject to much more and more
serious problems than expected before:
* **Myth self-organization**: While Barlow still dreamt of a new
"civilization of mind" [Zivilisation des Geistes] surfers today
complain about how uncivilized and mindless many online forums are
and request more consequent punishments.
* **Myth egality**: It turned out that net communities are not free of
discrimination: racism, nationalism and sexism are shown sometimes
especially open and aggressive.
* **Myth knowledge creation**: The number of new insights online
discourses deliver is limited, because more often than not laymen
and wannabe experts discuss with themselves. Sometimes even
dangerous ideologies are cultivated as Sonia Worotynek showed for a
mailing list of nannies [Tagesmütter] where to reduce the work load
was more important than the needs of the children.
* **Myth participation**: The huge majority of community members never
speaks up and stays passive - as for the TV so for the computer
monitor.
* **Myth democratization**: If net users engage online at all then they
rarely pursue democratic / emancipatory goals. In practice
unpolitical or even anti-democratic engagement seems to be more
typical. [http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/pol/8001/1.html]
* **Myth creation of ones personality**: Most users do not notice any
changes in their personality in the sense of raised self-awareness
because of their online activities. Internet addiction - that is an
excessive use minimizing other fields of life and experienced as a
loss of inner richness - applies to three percent and seven percent
are in danger.
However, the demystification of cyber Utopias should not lead to a
rejection of the net but should be a reason for an active and
reflected creation of and participation in online communities.
Measure of community
====================
Beyond revolutionary pathos, expected earnings, cultural pessimism and
personal anecdotes the social science research systematically tries to
discover whether and where communities came into being from online
forums. There are different approaches:
* **Virtual settlement**: The *communication science* theory of the
virtual settlement by Quentin Jones
[http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol3/issue3/jones.html] says that only
with a minimum of communication events one can say that an online
forum really created a virtual community. This is there need to be
a) multiple communicators of which b) some engage as regular members
over a longer period and c) to a visible extent publish forums in
the public part of the forum which d) relate to each other. By this
criteria a mailing list which is used exclusively for distribution
of information can be distinguished from a mailing list community.
* **Virtual culture**: According to this *sociological* approach a
virtual community is not only defined by the communication among a
fixed core of regular members, but also that the communication to
some degree also is about the community building itself
[http://www.aluluei.com]: The existence of commented member lists,
written behavior guidelines, reports from experiences, myths,
rituals, citation gatherings, insider jargon, [Klatschgeschichten]
or photo albums proves that the members of a forum establish an own
communication culture and this way as a community distinguish
themselves from other forums. In practice extensive welcome
messages, FAQs or starter courses for newbies emphasize that in the
forum a certain culture is maintained.
* **Common identity**: This approach focuses on the *psychological*
theory of the experience of each of the community members. The more
all participants identify with the forum or its functions,
respectively, the stronger the respective community is. Such a
collective identification is independent from concrete relationships
to other members of the community.
For instance because of their passion for MUDding MUD players feel
as being a community and distinguish themselves from chatters. The
MUD gives them an even stronger feeling of community than their home
country, that is their MUD identity is stronger than theit national
identity.
Religious communities or scientific communities are kept together by
common values and goals, too, and not by all members living together
all day which in romantic ideas of community often is described as a
necessary precondition.
* **Common bond**: A common, mental [ideelle] identification is only
one aspect of the experience of community. Belonging, feeling save
[Geborgenheit] and support [Rückhalt] come from concrete
relationships to other members of the community as the common bond
approach emphasizes. Both types of social glue are necessary because
often communities have a fractal structure: The belonging to the the
world community of believers (common identity) and the embedding in
the local church community (common bond) complete each other. And
the identification with the AOL, IRC or MUD community is becoming
stronger by the social binding to other members in the own regular
AOL chat, favorite channel or favorite MUD.
The personal bindings between the single members are the more
important for keeping the community the less overall common topics
there are. For instance you will leave the off topic channel
#flirtcafe if others get on your nerves - in the end flirting you
can do anywhere. On the other hand you will more likely stay in the
on topic channel #linux.ger to continue to participate in the Linux
community.
Repeated measurements in the same forum allow to track changes in a
community. Also comparisons between different online forums as well as
between online and offline communities are possible using the
community indicators mentioned above.
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