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Is The Virtual Community A Myth?
In a piercing but cynical assessment of online community, Lockard points (the essay is in the book "Internet Culture") out that cyberspace is by definition expensive real estate. Access requires significant disposable income to cover computer capitalization, the continuing outlays of phone bills, repair and continuing recapitalization. For some, employers pick up the tab. For others, like university students, access is a privilege or perk that comes with tuition.
Nevertheless, utopians mooned over the Net's birth, and the idea of virtual community was one of their earliest delights.
Cyberspace, Lockard writes, arrived "virtually unchallenged as a democratic myth, a fresh field for participatory citizenship." Comparisons to "Jeffersonian democracy" (which I've made more than once) and other universal democratic ideals bespeak a historical naivete and ignorance, he charges, leaving unspoken the hard fact that access capital is "the poll tax for would-be virtual citizens."
Lockard ridicules the "trickle-down technology" theorem which holds that digital machinery will eventually become cheap enough for everybody, just like phones, electricity and cars. That, he says, is pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that completely ignores the gateway stratification and mal-distribution of access incorporated into Net access and modern computing. The individualism and fragmented interests that mark the Net and the Web actually work as an impediment to social cooperation in cyberspace, marking the dominance of class privilege over a truly inclusive community.
Lockard's essay scores more than once. He's right in going after the hype that has surrounded the idea of the virtual community for years now. The tech world is rich and elitist, and becomes more so daily. Apart from developments like open source, which has done much to try and make technology more inclusive (though very few people will ever be able to successfully program) there are few signs yet that the Net is re-vitalizing democracy, or that virtual communities are supplanting or improving upon real ones. online, we see little organized concern for the technologically-deprived, or worry about the inevitable social divisions created by classes of empowered and tech-deprived people. It's already obvious that people with access to computing and the Net will have enormous educational, social and business advantages over those who don't; the latter face menial, low-paying jobs all over the planet.
Lockard also accurately points out that the largest communities forming online are corporate, not individualistic, and their agenda is marketing, not community. He calls the very idea of a "virtual community" an oxymoron.
"Instead of real communities, cyber-communities sit in front of the [late but not lamented] Apple World opening screen that pictures a cluster of cartoon buildings which represent community functions (click on post office for e-mail, a store for online shopping, a pillared library for electronic encyclopedias, etc.)" Such software addresses only a desire for community, Lockard writes, not the real thing.
Materiality is the definition of real communities, and virtual communities can't replicate real ones. He writes, in fact, "... [I]t is precisely this human need for community that is being projected onto cyberspace and exploited, sometimes even with the best of intentions." This comparison is a bit of a stretch, something like comparing Disney World to one's hometown. Apple World never evoked a virtual community, it was just trying to steal some of AOL's business.
But for all the value of this kind of anti-hype perspective, it's too soon to dismiss the idea of the virtual community. Jeffersonian ideals were created by an elite, remember, one of whose leading members was Jefferson himself. The very idea of individual liberty was, at the time, an elitist notion conferred on certain white male property owners (remember, the poll tax and other impediments limited the scope of the trumpeted equality) but not extended to other Americans for nearly two centuries.
Potentially, computing could be used to make voting easier, more honest and even, if information becme more widely available to more citizens, more rational. Online campaigns could, theoretically, be far less expensive, alienating and Washington-centered, as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura proved a few years ago.
Lockard's argument also suffers from a narrow definition of community. Certainly there are bulletin boards and mailing lists -- from sex sites to San Francisco's WELL, from media-centric gatherings from pet rescue forums to AOL's Senior Net -- that have functioned for some time as very real communities that foster conversation and mutual understanding, spawn friendships, generate support for members in trouble. Topical, community oriented Websites -- everything from Camworld.com, Kuro5shin and myvideogames.com to Slashdot -- function as information or true cultural communities as well -- sometimes for idea-sharing, sometimes for material support and information.
The early cyber-gurus definitely got carried away by notions that everything would become virtual, a mistake now shared by all sorts of panicked businesses -- publishing comes to mind -- and starry-eyed utopians. Cyberspace is definitely a new kind of space, but there's as yet no reason to believe that it won't compliment or co-exist with the material kind. So far at least, virtual communities suggest a Middle Kingdom, existing somewhere in the middle between the utopian fantasies and Lockard's dismissive jeers.
Online people do make powerful connections and the virtual realm does permit us to share information (including software), research and commerce and and encounter all sorts of people in all kinds of places -- something that has never been possible before. But when the dust settles, and if the history of technology offers any clues, people will always hang out with their friends, get drunk. They'll still be logging off their computers to have sex, get married, fight with their parents, send their kids off to school and go to the movies, and seek out the company of human beings to meet human needs. The best virtual communities have always complimented that need, not supplanted it.
this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.. Half of the things he uses to claim its not a community, have never been claimed to MAKE a community.. He says that because we 'log off' to do certain things, thats part of what makes it not a community.. Well, the town I live in, is a community. I go outside of my town all the time to do things. Shop, play, learn, etc. Not EVERYTHING can be done in your community.. it wouldn't be a community it would be a compound... or some type of religious cult. He also claims that the internet is only for the elitists... and thats balogna.. I paid about 600 dollars for a computer, which I can do everything I want to do online. IRC, web surf, read news groups, and login to a unix shell. All of that is a part of my community.. my realm. I know plenty of 'poor people' who spend more than 600 dollars on a bicycle.. or especially on a CAR... I don't think its quite the utopia, that sci fi books would write about.. But it certainly does have characteristics of a community.. or SEVERAL communities. people form together, and do stuff.. for one reason or another.. and yes it may contain commerce (too much if you ask me).. but thats PART of a community. After all.. you can have all the good will, and love, and voting, and all that stuff that you want.. but If you can't buy your groceries, and your bedroom furniture, how long will your community last? (I think the internet would be fine with a hell of a lot less commerce, but that doesn't make it a non-community..).
~fin~
-- "I feel a strong disturbance in the for.."\*Segmentation Fault*\ (core dumped)
The web only has "forums" not true communities. There is no real interaction on the web, just reaction.
...because no one knows how to work and be with one another, they just know how to anticipate and react to the actions of each other. It's a difference.
However, what is interaction but a long chain of actions and reactions? Perhaps the delay inherent in the Net is only now causing people to realize that.
And the difference is... ? While it's true people aren't physically with each other, does this really matter? And if they aren't, then is a telephone call "interaction"? And if it is, then why isn't a Web-based forum?
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I guess he hasn't looked in the phone book too much. There is an organization which takes computer donations, refurbishes them, adds a free internet service provider, and gives them away for free to neighborhood damilies that would not be able to afford them otherwise.
The interesting fact is that the limit of their output is not hardware, but time, to do the refurbishing. They have a warehouse of donated computers that they just haven't gotten around to yet.
Of course this isn't the most common situation, but it's happening more and more. Is that elitest?
Steve VanDeBogart
> Usenet started dieing after the emergence of many of the sites like slashdot and it's use of a very unreliable protocol for transporting
/. ever appeared on the scene. (And AFAIK, /. was the first web site to offer a manageable reader feedback area where people could read & comment on each other's posts.)
> information around.
Yes and no.
Usenet was showing a drop in traffic long before
Why this is, I can't say; but I have seen the more serious usenet groups (e.g. comp.mail.misc) fall from several dozen post in a day to less than 10 over a period of a couple of years. Part of this (speaking from my impression) is probably due to spam, part of it due to scaling problems (to offer a full newsfeed in 1996, you needed more than a T1 line to suck all of the articles down -- & many ISPs are falling back to a strategy of contracting their newsfeeds to a third party, & only sucking down those newsgroups that its users read), & part of it due to competition for eyes with the web (``comp.mail.misc? What kind of URL is that? I always go to www.jesseberst.com for all of my computer news! I just click on the links & he tells me everything I should know").
On the other hand, mailinglists seem healthy & just as vibrant as ever -- at least from the half dozen I am subscribed to. Spam is more easily dealt with, you don't get as many trolls or off-topic posts, but you still have 100% of the kooks & characters the Usenet cabal established for you in 1990!
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
In addition, where you might currently see an elitist forum distanced by technology, years down the track it may well seem mundane. Imagine a similar description made of a city 500 years ago. There was no way for country folk to visit the city, interact with the city, be part of the city. They couldn't afford to live there, they couldn't afford to travel there. Was a city some elitist clique -- you bet. Is it now? It depends where you live. Plenty of places in the world are still at this struggling level, but for myself travelling 200km in a day is nothing. Travelling half way 'round the world only takes 19 hours.
So, you might see the 'Net as a private club house, but I might see it as a public meeting place. There are no fixed lines, only distance from your self.
I met this great girl on a newsgroup in 1992, and we've been happily married since 1997! I know a lot of couples who met on the net. Some net relationships work, some don't.
Troll.
Canadian Troll.
I think it might have more to do with the fact that is sounds like he worked his butt off learning and absorbing all he could, instead of whining about his "disadvantages".
Anyone can go from any class to any other class in this country. It's not feudalism where you are born a peasant and must stay that way. Sure it's not going to be as easy for everyone, some start out with disadvantages. But if they spend all their time complaining about their disadvantages instead of working that much harder at learning useful skills, no amount of help will make them successful.
Finkployd
That's a nice rant, but what makes you say that? I've noticed quite a bit of varied opinions here (on more than just text editors, for that matter) and very little (if any) references to skin color.
/. discussion, we have no right to discuss anything? It sure sounds that way.
As for us telling poor people what do to, we all have our opinions on the the state of the world, and we tend to discuss them, but I don't see any of us enforcing our opinion on others. Not many sysadmins are making decisions that affect columbian peasants.
Are you suggesting that until we force all groups of people (rich, poor, black, white) to engage in
Finkployd
I love it when priveleged whites in the suburbs think that they live in the same America as those in the inner cities.
(note: I'm white, so in your eyes this may invalidate my entire comment)
I know some inner city youths who were in drugs, stealing car stereos, street fighting, etc. One of them decided to try to make something of himself, so he got a job in construction (after interviewing for two years trying to get in somewhere, and getting a GED at the same time) and worked till he had enough to go to a semester of college as a provisional student. He currently completly supports himself and alternated between going to college and working to pay for it. He now has a pretty good job and lives a much better life.
You know what else, he does all this without resentment toward those who were more "priveleged" than him, and doesn't constantly dwell on how hard he had it. Maybe that is what would fix the inner city. Looking at life as a challange to create your own "priveleges" instead of "I was born disadvantaged, so I'm not even going to try and be successful...someone else should help me"
Finkployd
This guy needs to remove his head from his sphincter.
:) No elite here anymore.
I know people who are poorer than dirt who manage to afford a cheap (or recycled) PC and AOL access.
PC prices are continually falling, and internet appliances are available for even less. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that web access will not eventually become as ubiquitious as access to a Television.
I would like to see this guy back up his claim that web access will remain limited to the elite. It may have been in the past, but it is no longer.
Just look at the trend in the quality of slashdot postings over time
-josh
The web only has "forums" not true communities. There is no real interaction on the web, just reaction. Without ongoing interaction, there can't be any form of community, because no one knows how to work and be with one another, they just know how to anticipate and react to the actions of each other. It's a difference.
Yes, community, just like anything "e-" or "i-", was just another buzzword that caught on as web companies were trying to figure out a way to make market valuations seem fair, so they'ed spout "but we have this great community aspect going for us".
dotcoms are dead. their buzzwords should die off as well.
On another tangent, is it me or is the first JonKatz article around here in a LONG TIME?
It is really funny reading through these posts, half of the people are being intelectual about it and the other half are defending their chatrooms because they can go there to get cyber-layed because no one talks to them in the "real world". Aside from it being funny, the whole idea of a virtual world is miscontrued. Virtual communities are merely extentions of reality, you're not talking to a video game, you're talking to real people. I can do the same thing with my ham radio. Go outside, get drunk, stumble. Its fun.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
A big product of there is http://www.cybertown.com/main_nsframes.html. IT is really cool after you set up an avitar of your own. You can shop and chat and do all sorts of things, including buying a virtual home and have a virtual job.
Okay maybe this is not exactly what they guy was talking about. But he did say 'virtual communities' and did not really define what he meant. Sure you can infer, but that only leads to speculation.
Hey I have virtual friends. People I have only chatted with on line does that count? I do have real frineds too though.
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Some points:
Just like they used to only sell cars to the very rich, or electricity to those who were close to town? These don't sound like long-standing problems to me. (Although in the case of electricity, it did take some government intervention to get it all the way out into the country. Government intervention to provide 'net access to all is no less plausible, especially if much of the world's business begins to be done over the net.)
Well, if you can define the terms of the debate such that by definition they are irreconcilable, then why did you need to write a book about it? Community is a meeting of minds, not bodies, and the net is the closest thing yet to a real meeting of the minds. Sure, it isn't everybody's mind yet, but give it time.
I have to agree with the KatzBot on this one - this naysayer is way off-base. Access to the web will bring about "social and democratic enlightenment", it just may take a while. And it seems to me that it's moving a lot faster than any previous comparable social change.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
--The more you know, the less you know.
So, I've been part of an online community for two years. Help with their web page. We've held get-togethers to hang out. Two of my friends are being "tutored" by me in job searching. I got together with others at a convention. Sounds like a community to me. What people miss is that virtual communities are reflective of and become "real-life ones." There's no division, the two blend into each other. The Internet is just another tool. We'd be better off focusing on what the Internet can do then arguing minutate of definitions on a hideously personal and subjective subject such as this. Now getting people more technical access, THAT'S a worthy goal.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
2600 turned their theoretical community based on the magazine and their internet presence into local real communities by encouraging meetings in public places.
--
RumorsDaily
So far at least, virtual communities suggest a Middle Kingdom, existing somewhere in the middle between the utopian fantasies and Lockard's dismissive jeers.
With nearly all utopian fantasies and dismissive jeers. The never seem to be as good as the utopiast envision, but never as bad as the alarmist worry about. It's always a mediocre medium and humanity trudges on.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
At least media wise.
The Internet makes it very cheap to publish information, but relatively expensive (at the current time) to consume it. This turns the existing situation on its head, where its cheap to buy information (by owning a radio or buying a magazine) but expensive to distribute it (by owning a radio station or being a publisher).
So the first order effect is to create media empirelets like Slashdot out of financial thin air.
Of course, nobody at Slashdot takes out my garbage (unless the sanitation engineer reads it on his free time). We need real communities to live in. But to discount virtual communities completely is to discount entirely the importance of information and ideas.
I am not as excited by the prospect of the virtual communitity as I am at the prospect of the information enhanced community. We're seeing it now with retailers putting in Intranet terminals so shoppers can browse for products not on the showroom or get information about them; town services such as licenses through self serve kiosks and over the Internet; newspapers going on line, and even blue collar workers are getting Intra and Internet access. Cities and towns routinely have websites, which while pretty bad right now, but imagine if every town web site was running a Slashdot style forum. I/T could lower the cost of entry to politics the way it has to publishing.
Of course, there's still the problems of the have nots.
There is absolutely no question in my mind that the cost of a fairly powerful information terminal (perhaps something like a current generation palm pilot or Apple's ill fated eMate) will cost less than $50 in about two years. Most of the information have-nots in this country already have televisions which cost more and will benefit them less.
The bigger problem to entry into this information enhanced society will be literacy and education. People who lack these cannot exploit the information technology enhancements made to normal civic and work life. However this problem is nothing new. The poorly educated are already marginalized.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I think that the distinction between 'virtual' and 'real' is a problem. A community can stretch between 'virtual' and 'real', complementing the strengths of both arenas. When I attend a conference I see people I mostly only talk to online. The 'real' and 'virtual' interactions support each other. The community isn't 'virtual' or 'real', only the medium being used to communicate. The community is the people, companies, any thing else, that is interacting together. The only difference is how they are interacting, carrier pidgeon, carrier signal, or carrier wave.
I would not be complimenting you if I told you that you used the word "compliment" in place of "complement"; rather, the complement.
-russ
p.s. Jon, you're a native English speaker. You have no excuse.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"Materiality is the definition of real communities, and virtual communities can't replicate real ones."
This is circular. It's not an argument, it's an arbitrary definition. I don't think that materiality has anything to do with community, and it's not fair to redefine words to make an argument.
Also, internet access gets cheaper every day. Many people can use the internet from libraries for free. So, that's bogus, too.......
Not that it matters, because inclusivity is not a measure of a community. (It may be a measure of a utopian community, but they don't call it utopia for nothing).
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Pray tell, how is going online today expensive?
What, at the minimum, is needed for anyone to go online?
1. Access
2. Interface
Access would be a phone, and a local dial-up ISP. Almost everyone has a phone. Only the extreme poor don't have a phone (why, I cannot understand, since a phone - for local calls only - costs about $30.00 a month - surely one can budget for that amount). Local dial-up ISPs can be found that charge less than $20.00 a month for access. What are we at now, $50.00 a month? Have several people chip in on a single account (yeah, I know most contracts prohibit this, but it could be done anyway) and phone, and you might be looking at $10.00 a month for 5 people.
Now, the interface. Computers are expensive you say? NONSENSE. I can go down to my local trash bin and damn near pull a complete system from the garbage. If I wanted to actually shop for something, I could go down to a local electronics recycling place, and buy an old 486 and a modem for about $100 - or a VT100 terminal and a modem for less. Heck, for even less - go to a garage sale, pick up an old TRS-80 or Commie, hook up a cheap 2400 baud modem, some comm software, and your TV (everyone has a TV - even if they don't have a phone, they have a TV).
THAT IS ALL THAT IS REQUIRED.
Provided all you are seeking is information - information that might (just maybe) help you out of your situation, and into something more profitable. Get a simple shell account, use Lynx to browse the web (hell, it is healthier for you that way, anyhow), and Pine/Elm for email.
If all you are wanting is porn, or some other consumer crap, then you are SOL.
The internet can help everyone - and anyone can join the discussion. For plain information, it doesn't take anything (much of anything) to use.
Unfortunately, it is getting harder to find plain dial-up shell accounts...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I have to ask - what class did you start out in, before you went to art school. Did you start out educated class (not rich, necessarily)? How did you get into computers in the first place?
The fact that you went through poverty does not necessarily mean that you didn't still start out with intangible class advantages that let you use the cyber community to get where you are.
-- I'm not evil, I'm
I was involved in the old Genie online service. My portion was the Science Fiction Round Tables, which become a real community where F&SF writers could talk to their peers and fans about their lives and work.
Genie died, but the community migrated to the web, at dm.net and sfrt.com. I suggest that an online community able to last over 10 years and outlast its orginal home is real!
*sigh*
In the examples Katz quotes the author as citing, he's absolutely correct. However, those examples are almost completely irrelevant.
And more irritatingly, there's all this red-herring crap about whether or not technology is accessible to which people. Look: a community of rich, privileged people is still a community. "Community", which has been often and is here being used as a catch-all feel-good word, is ANTITHETICAL to inclusivity. The experience of community arises among people who have a higher-than-default sense of connection with one another, and a correllary to that is that in comparison, they have less sense of connection to the people outside the group. That "sense of connection gradient" basically defines a social wall between "us" and "them", whether in a village or a chat room.
And a quick review of any basic anthropology text will reveal that a sense of community has little to nothing to do with democracy or liberty. Also irritating about this essay (at least as reported by Katz) is that the people who wrote most rapsodically about the experience of community available on line (Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace"; Reingold, "Virtual Community") were not arguing that community would bring democracy, or any other political system, to the world. They were putting forth the argument from observation that the experience of community -- a sense of belonging, an on-going densely connected graph of interpersonal relationships, the evolution of a distinct (sub)culture -- could happen in a virtual environment.
We take this for granted now, but once upon a time not so long ago, sociologists wrote, and I kid you not, that the idea that geographically distributed people might be able to form "community" (an idea first broached when air travel became cheap and readily available to certain classes of the 1st world society) was impossible.
Yes, it is disgusting how corporate interests have tried to appropriate the term "community" to apply to their feeble, sterile websites, and try to sell people a concept of community which is no more community that a listening audience is a "family". But that was never what any of us who were interested in this topic were talking about.
And basically, it sounds like either this author is a jerk who knows nothing about what he's talking about, or a jerk who has an ax to grind. The first is the case if he really fails to understand he just told many thousands of people "your subjective emotional experience didn't happen, your experience and voice is invalid, this social-emotional relationship you are in has no value" -- of COURSE those people would be insulted and feel attacked. The second is the case if he knows that, and still wants to tell many thousands of people "you're wrong about what you experience" -- the term "community" is a politically charged word, and it looks like he is trying to wrest control of it.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Frankly, I think it's vital. But I think in real life (so far) it's worked the other way around: a geographic group of people develop a virtual aspect.
I live in the Boston area, and know at least 2 "half-virtual" communities (am in one) off the top of my head. I expect there are more. Not being wholly virtual, they aren't necessary visible to the entire net. They don't necessarily want to be innundated with non-local members, so why advertise their presence as such on the www? Also, bluntly, they don't do real-time chat, or exist on web pages: they exist in email.
What makes virtual community appealing and so interesting is that it allows people to gather by topic, interests, attitudes, or tastes, or some commonality besides geography. So efforts to start virtual communities based on no more basis that "people who live in this town" tend to fail.
The two half-virtual communities I mention above both have themes other than merely "we all live here". They have more profound connections between the people.
So to my mind, the question is "how do you help existing communities become half-virtual, to reap the benefits of virtuality?" (there are many), not "how do you found new virtual communities and have them transcend virtuality?"
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Access requires significant disposable income to cover computer capitalization, the continuing outlays of phone bills, repair and continuing recapitalization.
So does a real community. In fact, a real community costs more than a virtual equivilent. Why? Continuing outlays of rent/utility/luxury bills, repair and continuing recapitalization, and don't forget the time involved.
Virtual communities, or whatever else you choose to call them, most definitely exist. I regularly contact at least a hundred, probably a few hundred, people and know them fairly well. But I've never met them in person, and so they are a virtual community.
the end.
_______________
you may quote me
I've wondered if there would be any use and/or acceptance of a web site designed to connect the "virtual" communities people have based on interest to the real ones the live in. A place where you register with your location, then can join topic or interest based groups, and you'll be directed toward people that are geographically close to you.
As nice as people are to talk to online, sometimes you want people to go to a movie with, to dinner with, invite over, or the like, and no matter how much to talk to someone from across the country online, they just can't fit in there. Maybe a way to help alleviate the lack of community people feel in more urban areas?
Does anyone see any use, anything appealing, about this idea?
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Widely known examples include the "make money fast" chain letter scams, and Social Security.
--
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
I'm a Net Admin working in a small town hospital in eastern Oklahoma. My previous job was in sales and tech support (such as it was) at the local Staples. While I did have my share of snobish, well-to-do customers, the bulk of them were "lower class" trailer park folk. You know the kind, they live from payday to payday, and the concept of saving money is as foreign as personel hygene.
When I would ask them what they intended to do with the machine second most common answer (the first being "Play Games!") would be "I'm gonna get on that internet, so I can get e-mail and see who won the tractor pull up in Tulsa." There are people in this world (and most of them live here in Oklahoma) who, no matter what it costs them or if they can afford it, WILL buy a computer and WILL get on the net. Trust me, I've seen people who couldn't even spell "computer" buy a machine so that they could have net access (well that and play solitaire).
Yes, it's somewhat disturbing that people could join a group where they hear only what they want to hear. On the other hand, in many communities conversation isn't only relegated to one specific main theme, and conversation can wander into any human interest, which allows individuals to grow from the perspective of others.
This sounds somewhat like doublespeak. Are you telling me you don't listen and respond when others communicate with you -- online or otherwise?
It takes effort to build relationsips; you can push people away just as easily in real life.
Exactly. It's pretty hard to talk about things other than the game while in it. I've played everquest a few times and there is conversation, but it's not at any level that I woulc consider of any depth.
Exactly, the guy is full of shit. Perhaps he should stick to analyzing themes in Shakespeare or get a real education.
Obviously the author has never played any online games.
1. If the "virtual community" is a myth, then how does he explain the player run towns in Ultima Online ?
2. There used to be a tavern on the Lake Superior shard that was called "Silk's Tavern". PK's would stop by and NOT actually kill anyone, since it was a "neutral zone!" A couple of Game Master's noted the popularity, and "blessed" it - they helped decorate it and made the decorations permanent. i.e. trees, shrubs, plates, bar stools, etc.
3. MUDs have had virtual community for YEARS.
4. Look at all the "clans" forming in the first person shooters. ie. Quake, etc. They have their own "small community." They "hang-out" in practises, and get together on the "clan matches." The larger community, are the game web sites, focusing on their specific game. i.e. After Looking Glass closed down, some "amatuer" level designers have produced some great Theif scenarios. If there was no community, then there wouldn't be any "excitement" about new levels.
Granted, the virtual communities in cyberspace has less "power" then the Real-World, but it they are just as real (since REAL LIVE players are involved.)
First of all, before I post my real rant, I'd like to point out that so-called Academic communities are also nothing more than a ponzi scheme perpetuated by a bunch of elite snobs who think that their colleagues are the best damn people on earth and true enlightenment stems from free access to their published works.
Potentially, computing could be used to make voting easier, more honest and even, if information becme more widely available to more citizens, more rational. Online campaigns could, theoretically, be far less expensive, alienating and Washington-centered, as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura proved a few years ago.
Right, right, and right. But, how does this constitute a "virtual community?" Looks to me like this is an example of the internet being used to improve life in pre-existing communities.
Let's think about it. Were there radio communities in the early 20th century? TV and telephone communities in the late 20th? "Hey, I got this new telephone thingy, now I can meet all KINDS of new people!" No. I think the idea that a new technology can magically create a community IS rather pie-in-the-sky.
However, the telephone in particular has helped me maintain community ties that I made otherwise. For example, I live 2000 miles away from my parents now, but I'm still able to talk to them in real time. It's nice.
In a sense, the same thing is happening with the internet, especially email and IM. My parents don't use those things so much, but my friends from college do (who I also rarely see in person). I've already had 3 people contact me via email in the past 2 months to come out and visit. Have we formed a "virtual community" because they emailed instead of calling?
I'd say no. We just used the internet as a tool to maintain our friendship. And that's how I like it. Enough with this argument that the "digital age" is somehow replacing whatever came before. You don't form virtual communities, you virtually reinforce the communities you've got.
Oh, please, Jon. AOL is about as community as virtual communities get. So what if everyone on AOL is a luser and not at all 37334? That's how real communities are, too; full of dummies. If there are online communities, this is what they look like. And to argue that the opposite is true - that virtual communities somehow bring out the best and brightest, well, that just confirms the essay's thesis: we're a bunch of elitists. Which way will you have it?
(Why the hell isn't this "+4, Insightful"?)
--
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a day.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
--
Build a man a fire, and he's warm for a day.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
An esteemed colleague of mine met his now-fiancee online too, and she just moved to the same city to be with him. Wedding scheduled for the Summer of 2001.
That said, many online relationships dissolve. I wish you two the best.
--
For some, the participation in an online community constitutes their leisure time. Yes, it may become a problem, but then, so can just about everything else.
--
As usual, the writeup "above the fold" shown on the front page is vague beyond usefulness, or potentially misleading in a way to spark controversy.
The first thought is "Hey, community exists wherever people go to hang out!" Don't flip that bozo bit yet.
The article that follows the Read More link isn't about 'virtual community' the way that eBay and slashdot and EverQuest and MUDs are about 'virtual community'. Those are virtual communities, and they each have their own intrapolitical issues to deal with, but have tenuous relationship to the world as a whole.
The article also isn't about such hybrid political 'virtual communities' like Napster, where the politics inside the community are widely debated as politics outside the community.
What the author is hitting on is the effect of online communications on the non-virtual community, i.e., the net's promises of Jeffersonian (enlightend) democracy.
I don't think this is even talking about virtual community. It's talking about community via the net . It's not discussing the formation of subcultures or other communities, it's discussing how the net affects existing community, either as various states, or nations, or as the human race.
In short, if I read "virtual communities are a myth," I'd scoff. If I considered whether the Internet has really affected the way the world works politically, I'd give pause to think about it. The answer isn't necessarily so cut and dried.
[
So, you're saying that there's no financial or social reason why inner city youth aren't booting Linux?
If you've climbed up Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs far enough to have shelter, and your daily bread, then you're already far better off than many. If you've got a stable family or social structure around you, you're better off still.
It's only once you have stopped scraping for shelter, food, love and self-esteem that you can begin to look at cognitive development.
Only those relative few who have any access to computers can grow a serious interest in computers. Those who haven't had consistent, constructive access to computers will probably find more application in a portable CD player, than in a Linux distribution on a discarded 486.
Elitism in the 'digital divide' doesn't necessarily mean "small top minority." It just means "not the small bottom minority."
[
From what I gather from the quasi-review, it seems that the author is arguing that because the net is the province of the tech elite that there are therefore no communities.
Firstly, I would argue that it is not necessarily the case that the "tech elite" own the web. While technophiles are pretty much by default net users, it does not follow the net users are exclusively tech elite.
It certainly is true that there is an income level cutoff for the majority of computer use, however this is also true of many other commodities that give people status and access (think automobile). Computers are significantly easier to access these days (as mentioned in schools and through employers).
My family and my wife's family are almost (except for her brother) entirely wired, in spite of over half of them not being technically inclined. Even my often broke, bad luck magnet uncle is wired, as he is very active in his community (his online community has a large intersection with his RL community).
I see no evidence that the authors assertion in this regard is correct. Given the behaviors of certain people with @aol.com emails, I'd say that a large percentage, possibly a majority, are not techs.
Secondly, even if the first argument was correct, it does not follow that an exclusive community is not a community. So what if all you meet are fellow geeks (as unlikely as that is)? What is to prevent these geeks from forming a community? From IRC i have regular (daily) contact with people from germany, norway, netherlands and england. We swap jokes, give book recommendations, make fun of "Survivor" etc. What's not a community about that (and I haven't even mentioned communities centering around gaming, like quake clans, and everquest guilds)?
In conclusion I'd have to say this author has his head up his ass. If he'd spend some more time actually relaxing and having fun online instead of technophobic ranting, I think he'd actually see the world in a more accurate light.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Thanks for pointing out that the "entry cost" is not merely financial, but also one of education. A functional computer can be purchased for little more than the cost of a television now, and I bet most people in this country have a television. Whether they are likely to spend that amount of money on something that requires learning to use is another question.
Lockard ridicules the "trickle-down technology" theorem which holds that digital machinery will eventually become cheap enough for everybody, just like phones, electricity and cars.
Lockard makes it sound like money is the main impediment, but methinks it is something else.
And BTW,
Democracy2 is probably one of the most unoriginal domain name Ideas I've heard since goat.sex.
Cheers
There's a reason that only ~%2 of the world is online.
Stop your USian centric rhetoric.
For those of you who don't have the attention span to read a whole Katz article, let me put it into a few bullet points.
Bottom line. Katz does a decent job of explaining the argument that "The Virtual Community" is a myth, and then debunking it. Unfortunately, this is something most of us already get, already being members of at least one "Virtual Community".
Every weekend I go over to my friend's house, and hang out with her, and her roomates. We are a small group of people, with some very obvious differences, but I think we may be a community of a half-dozen.
Some people may have a feeling of community here on /. But not all, If so, we wouldn't have 6 posts claiming to be first every time a new article shows up.
BUT I believe that some here do feel a sense of community. I'm working on it, but not yet.
One last thing, regarding elitism and the "Digital Divide." Many people say RTFM, well, it's hard to read that stuff sometimes, and they don't answer questions right away, you have to figure out where the answer is. If people were really into making technology for all, they would lend real help, not just give out URLs.
And the reason that people in the projects don't run a "FREE" OS on a 486, is that there is no way to get it. Where is the only place to get Linux for free? The Internet. That means you already have a working computer with a stable connection. There will never be a truly free OS until the cd's are as available as AOL coasters.
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
Without a doubt, costs exclude some individuals from this "virtual community." But what about the community of individuals in high priced neighborhoods or business communities? Are these not real collections of indviduals who interact in a manner that defines their community structure? The "virutal community" may be an exclusive community, but exclusivity does not make it not a community.
I think the logical danger that this argument runs into as well is that by the same standards that a "virtual community" could be considered not a community, so could a material community. For example, if members of the community, in the process of living their lives, go to the grocery store and say, "Hi!" to each other from across the parking lot, there is no material interaction. There's visual contact (across the net, no problem). There's auditory contact (across the net, no problem). The only place we fall short on the net is physical contact (often not done in "real" communities) and olfactory contact (done only when the people in your community miss baths and forget their deodorant).
Another great example of a virtual community is UNCENSORED! BBS which has been dialup since 1988 and both dialup and Internet based for years, up to this day.
A simple Google search will turn up many, many other BBS systems, and the successful ones can claim to have a virtual community right there.
---
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
But not only are "virtual" communities real, they're something far more significant than is generally acknowledged. In the case of MUDs, what we see is an interesting new way of communicating between people. What I find fascinating about MUDs is how they distort communications, and how such concepts as idioms and body language map to the new medium. For instance, such things as different "socials" (pre-cooked strings in response to commands like 'grin') and other behaviours that would normally seem mundane take on a whole new meaning. The difference between the 'smile' and 'grin' social, for instance, is vast, but you'd never see that otherwise. Different ways of communicating with people, through private and global communication, by moving around and doing various other things, evolve new forms of humour and new ways of feeling the presence of other people and objects. It's true that most MUD players don't think this, but I think they are generally getting it anyway whether they know it or not. MUDs and computer-based communications in general provide an interesting medium for playing with interpersonal relations and the relationship between people and the world around them.
I think from this perspective it is easy to see why Timothy Leary came to see "cyberspace" as a way to get to new levels of reality, much like LSD. To neglect the reality of this is silly, all you have to do is play MUDs for a while and you'll know what I'm talking about.
... between real communities and virtual communities is that in real ones, there are a bunch of people with both similarities and differences, and they HAVE TO live together.
You can have butch lesbians at the convenience store in line behind Jimmy Swaggart. And the checkout guy is a deadhead or whatever.
Virtual communities are basically groups of people with 'like' interests. More homogenous. In fact, people like virtual communities _because_ they are a contrast to real communities. They aren't the same thing. Two different beasts w/2 different purposes.
Well, you're by example living proof of this thesis. If you're not one of the elite, you shouldn't trouble yourself trying to understand those big words. Go away and play with your abacus, you sniveling pathetic non-elitist type, you. I type big scary words in your general direction.
I always find it interesting when nay-sayers peek into a given area without benefit of having any *real* grounding in the subject (doctoral canidate in English Lit is somehow a social scientist with a technical background?) So it is with great wonder that I can't figure out why he hasn't learned from history?
Oh, wait, they don't teach that in public schools anymore...my mistake.
The crux of what's troubling our poor, frustrated bard: technology -- *ALL* technology -- causes a "speeding up" relative to our surroundings:
Increases in efficency have only led to more thinking and scheming of how to get even more from a given tool, or how to build "the Next Great Thing!"
So, to steal a line from the late, great Clara Peller: "Where's the Beef?"
A virtual community is still a community of *people* -- whether it's neighbors who meet online in a chat room to discuss a Neighborhood Watch, or if it's a group of people scattered all over the planet discussing the newest PC game. "Virtual" just indicates that they aren't meeting in The Real World. Back in my day, we used to call that "writing a letter to a friend." Any shared space -- physical or metaphysical -- can be used to exchange ideas (or gossip or bullshit or whatever)...kinda like what your supposed to do when you matriculate at university.
Look at any active web board, mailing list or other online "community" and you'll see many participants trying desperately to create something for which they'll have joint responsibility. They'll want an "official" webpage, an archive, an award: anything to give them a sense that they're doing more than talking.
So, are there real online communities? Sure. Look at the Open Source movement, a community of people who talk a lot, but who also build things for which they're jointly responsible: code bases, archive sites, indexes, FAQs, etc.
Why do you consider yourself part of a community in the neighborhood where you live? Is it because you talk to the people there and share the same hobbies with them? Hell, no. If you met most of these people anywhere else you might not give them the time of day. It's because you have a common interest in protecting what's yours: your houses, your kids, your streets, your peace and quiet.
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
They don't care what race I am, or who I am, for that matter, they just help because they're protected by their anonymity, just like I am.
As for social enlightenment, I can get all the info I want on the web, but what I listen to is my choice. I feel better informed thanks to the internet. You might disagree.
BTW, what would an English-Lit PhD know about the online community (said the French Lit Major).
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
How many businesses have now jumped on the bandwagon and put up web sites hoping to rake in the big bucks?
Most of them.
How many of those sites have failed?
Most of them.
Whats the problem? People are buying into this whole "virtual community" as a something great and new. In fact, those businesses that eventually succeed online are going to be the ones that realize that the Internet doesnt mean you have to change your whole business. The Internet is simply a new tool to do the same thing you have always done. Just like the fax replaced mail for most written correspondance, so is email replacing the fax and the phone, and the Web is replacing catalogs (and trips to the store).
Existing businesses already have a real community of their customers. Dont redo everything, youve obviously done something right to this point. Simply give them another alternative in how to do business with you.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
'nuff said. More politics than you can shake a stick at.
I eat the flesh off the living, and I vote!
On the net you can meet people who are far away. I communicate with people who live in Serbia, in Croatia, in Austria, in Greece... You can get a very different view of what's happening in the world (e.g. in Serbia) when you have contacts like this. And on the internet, these sorts of contacts are easy (relatively so) to make.
Sure - they are people, too, but that's one thing which is a lot easier to forget when you just read newspapers and watch TV news. There *is* a different quality of these communities.
For example with the naming controversy over the republic of Macedonia - wouldn't it be interesting to ask a Greek friend or two what they think? And then maybe a Macedonian? How would anyone go about this *before* the internet?
Forgive me for being cynical. In the corporate world, the only group of people are a group of people to be advertised to.
Of course there is! /. is proof enough for me.
Indeed, these people should have read USENET news over the past decade to see that people ordinary people feel no commitment to the internet. DotComs are dropping like flies, which seems to underscore this. Conceivable that the utterance "Your momma is a troll and your papa flamebait" is an observation rather than insult.
I did wonder if the
Primative: Around the fire
Prior to 1920s: Around the dinner table
1920s-1950s: Around the radio
1950s-1990s: Around the TV
1990s-?????: Around the computer
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Personally, I would throw this moron's dissertation in the trash can.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Well, when asking "Are virtual communities real?" just examine the meaning of the word virtual and you'll see the difficulty. Virtual _means_ not (quite) real. Quasi-real, if you will. Having a certain functionality or aspect of the real thing, but being sort of a simalacrum.
I'd say no community that is solely virtual is really complete. I can think of several communities who have alot of their dialogue and commerce in a "virtual" way. The contemporary a'capella society of america was one of the first I ran into (or realized this about). I came into contact with it through usenet (rec.music.acapella), but quickly was introduced into a local organization, and attended conventions. There was a real a'capella community that transacted much of its communications virtually. But you could -- and this is key, you very likely WOULD -- get to meet others face to face, if you reached a certain point of participation.
(One of my Math teachers saw the "scientific" community this way, too: he had one-way virtual dialogues with Newton and Euclid. And he even saw religion this way, too: one way dialogues with Isaiah, Luke, and others).
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I, too, regularly converse with a bunch of people I have never met IRL through e-mail. Most of them are "friends of friends" that got sucked into our e-mail lists. There is an old joke about the difference between a friend and a best friend. A friend is someone you can call to help you move. A best friend is someone you can call to help you move ... a body. I kinda define "community" the same way. If these people I have never met were coming into town and needed a place to crash, I "know" them well enough to invite them over. I would like to meet them all face to face. If I need something (information wise), I would never hesitate to ask them. In a way, they are like virtual neighbors.
I might add that I am fortunate enough to live in a real neighborhood community where I know most all of my (physical neighbors) and we spend a lot of time gossiping on the porch or the front yard, have block parties, pick up each other's kids from school and babysit if the need arises, etc.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
although more compelling than one to many communications (ie. television, radio, etc.), the killer apps of the net lie not in the expediency of communication or even in the newfound routes or options, but in the shared concept of information - that is - that no idea ever dies in our whirlwind. we have afforded ourselves the ability to communicate from the many to the one, and to actually have the receiver be the principle of that equation. YOU are your own community, and any virtual community is merely a part of your individualistic outlook, communication and information circle. the focus is on the individual in our new world, and i say this feeling very lonely in this basement office on this cold fall day.
S I T E
great comedy company.
Virtual communities like Slashdot exist, and they closely mirror the meatworld communities out there: we have assholes, snobs, suckups, and all manner of other lowlifes, as well as the sorts of people who make community participation worthwhile. The only problem is that, because the vitual community so closely mirrors the outside one, they both will suffer from the same inability to make the real political change that everyone seems to crave. It's different, but deep down, it's just the same. Wake me up when history stops repeating itself.
-- Anne Marie
They have an abundance of time, not of money.
Not bloody likely. If they're poor and not working, then yeah... they may have time. But they probably won't have any inclination to learn anything. If they're of the working poor class, then they probably have the inclination to learn, but they don't have the time or money since all their time is wrapped up in trying to make enough money to stay afloat. My family was somewhat like this.. except we were more of a lower-middle class, paycheck-to-paycheck living family. Still are really. It's very hard to get out of it once you're there. Any unforseen problem can start you on a downward spiral too, which makes you spend your time trying to get back to where you were before. Families that are worse off than mine was certainly aren't likely to have the time to devote to learning computers when they are spending their time trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. I got lucky when the company my mom worked for threw out some old computers and we got one of them (286/12mhz(IIRC), 1 meg of ram, CGA monitor, 10MB HD). It was the summer before my senior year in HS. If it weren't for that, I might not be typing this right now.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I flunked out of art school. Twice. Having no skills and no ability to hold down "normal" jobs, I used to live off $400 a month in the early nineties. That's $4800 a year, so far below the poverty line, I couldn't even see daylight from where I was.
$150 of that went to pay my share of the rent and utilities every month. $20 of what was left went for a dial-up shell account at a local ISP. I used a 5 year old Macintosh (with a black and white screen!) to get email, read news, chat on IRC and log onto the local BBSs. Two years later, and I had saved up enough ($500) to buy another five year old Mac, this one with a color graphics card and a monitor, and whoah! Web browsing!
In this day and age, all the computer equipment you need to get you online can be had for less than $100 if you shop carefully. Operating systems (Linux, *BSD, BeOS, QNX, Mac System 7) can be had for free. Net access is $15/month, or free if you can put up with the advertising.
So, tell me again how online access is open only to the "monied elite".
I'm now a Unix sys-admin and collumnist for online Macintosh trade journals. I make more money than my parents do. I would never, ever, ever have had the opportunity to make something of myself without net access, and without the support and advice of people I know only through the internet.
The "cyber community" is NOT the private reserve of the priveledged, and has done more to level class structure in the United states than anything short of the civli rights movement and the Emancipation Proclimation.
Think on that.
SoupIsGood Food
But I see where the author is coming from - this virtual community of friends can't affect in any meaningful way my physical environs. They're not part of my meatspace community, and to some extent, they sap my intellectual energies away from the people and institutions of proximate geography I might otherwise be more involved with, but for the internet.
Therein lies the danger - when people abandon their physical community for a virtual one, they leave their meatspace quality of life in the hands of other interested parties. This is how crack houses happen, how fundamentalists get elected to school boards, how zoning laws institutionalize race and class distinctions - smart people who could make a difference just don't pay attention. A virtual community is fundamentally no replacement for a real one.
Don't get me wrong, I don't lay the blame at the foot of the internet exclusively, so much as I do at our society's increasing tendency towards isolation. I do think internet use can be empowering, especially when used for grass-roots media (I love what the folks at indymedia.org are doing, even if I'm not thrilled with their hysterical tone at times - but then "they" are a loose collection of volunteers, mostly, and they still manage better coverage of many issues than professionals). I don't buy the hype of its grand transformative powers, though - the same things were said about television. ("But it's a one-way medium! The internet is different," I hear you say. Tell me about it in 10 years when you can't find an ISP to host your controversial web page about [whatever] because of liability concerns. So you can host pictures of your cat. Real empowering.) The internet, like the real world, is what we make of it - no more, no less. If we try and substitute virtual interactions for knowing your neighbors and local politicians, though, we're going to wake up with a headache one day.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
There are technological boundaries to be sure -- despite the great strides we've taken, the web is by its connectionless nature an awful way to build responsive, interactive tools -- but communities as such have largely ceased to exist in the wealthy, technologically-advanced, highly-mobile cities of the western world.
The question I don't think anyone is asking is whether the majority of people even want a community. Atavistic throwbacks like Jon Katz (and myself, for that matter) dig the idea of place and history and community, but I don't think most people do, or they wouldn't live the way they do. Those who do want community have their work cut out for them resisting the centrifugal forces of the modern world. Whether it's possible on the net misses the bigger issue of whether it's possible in the world anymore.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
The problem with the discussion about this article is that there's no shared definition of what "community" means among the posters. I participate in several things that could be broadly described as "virtual communities", but are very, very different beasts.
/. and nearly impossible in a group of this size. But it still clearly has elements of community.
/. community norms...
/. is a community in that it's a place where a specific group of people with a common identity (broadly, geekdom) post information of common interest to other people like them, and "discuss" that information. I put "discuss" in "quotes" because there's no extended dialog- one post per user is the norm, maybe with a followup for clarification. What's missing the the element of personal relationships- most "communities" are really best defined as a conglomeration of personal relationships between the participants, which is almost nonexistant on
I am on several mailing lists that consist primarily of former friend and peer groups from "real life". I graduated from college six years ago, and despite the fact that we are spread across the country and world, the group of close friends I had there interacts on a daily basis using one. We support each other in times of trouble, carry on deep conversations as if we were all hanging out in some bar, and generally keep up with what's important in our lives. This very much is a real-life community of personal relationships that has been strengthened by Internet technology.
These are just two examples. They are both radically different from each other, but fall under the broad definition of "community". I bet that the author of this book has a very specific definition of what he means by "community", and I'm guessing that it's something entirely different than the two communities I've described above. Unfortunately, what this definition is was not communicated clearly in Katz's review. I guess the lesson is not to get your panties in a wad over someone else's interpretation of a work on a complex topic like this... read it for yourself before spouting off.
Of course, this wouldn't be true to the
Yeah, and the largest phone systems belong to corporations, too. That doesn't invalidate the telephone as a mode of community interaction.
I think what they essayist missed here is that "virtual" and "community" are both stand-alone concepts. A community is a group of people who are interrelated, one way or another. "Virtual" (in the sense it is being used here) is the way people communicate. The "virtual community" isn't going to "replace" regular community any more than literate communities (remember, near universal literacy is a modern phenom) replaced spoken communities.
Computer literacy makes a similar gap in society now as traditional literacy has made in the past. And, consider, even now, the literacy gap between economic classes. If that gap hasn't gone away, do you expect the computer litaracy gap to vanish so easily?
-- I'm not evil, I'm
So you're saying that the ignorant clerk at the deli counter, who doesn't even know that "1/4" isn't the same as "0.4" can:
1) Learn how to install, config and navigate Linux
2) Figure out how to set up ppp or whatever to connect to a free ISP
3) Know a 486 from Ru486
4) Accurately differentitiate "1/4" pound of PCs from "0.4" pounds of dirt
It's not really fair to use the economic yardstick, since even the dumbest can find a job and make enough to buy a bargain PC at Best Buy, with one of those Compuserve or MSN rebates, almost for free*.
The difference is in training and education, (note: not to be confused with intellectual, elitist, Jefferson-wannabe) to even know how to get tied into the internet. Let alone they don't just babble away in an AOL chatroom, rather than ponder deep thoughts (Steven Hawking, f'rinstance). Once their online, see if the interation with Anonymous (or not-so-anonymous) people thoughout the internet turn them into a gaggle of enlightened souls.
*Free now, but $480 over the next two years...
--
Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He seems to point at the "Digital Divide" as a major reason why online "communities" are for the elite, the wealthy. What hogwash. 1) Linux is free. 2) There are free ISP's. 3) Linux runs well on old 486's and pentiums. 4) 486's and pentiums are dirt cheap, cheaper than a portable CD player.
Go Lakers!
However, this is not something that is inherent to the idea of the internet, rather it is a flaw that evolved during its implementation.
If internet was accessible through public kiosks throughout the world, and everyone would be allocated personal space to use as their own hard drive, the idea of the internet would not be changed. Just becasue currently you must have your own computer to participate, does not mean that the principles of open communications have failed to provide uniform access to the underpriveleged. Rather, it can be said that no scheme has been developed yet to tap the full potential of the equality offered by the open information system that is the internet.
Ñ'
I'm getting virtually nothing done here at work while I read slashdot. I think that counts too.
You have to understand that the internet is only really the internet when it includes all that one can accomplish with an IP address to meet their needs with. Unattented access to various sites on the internet is one of the things that is extremely nice. Many times I have not have the patience to spend hours looking for something on a web site but sent my trusty web spider to look at it for me. I get all the information and can grep it and look for anything I need. I can print it out and save it for future use and make a great deal of discovery at a later date and all of the data is preserved. I can obtain software that will enable my comptuer not to remain outdated as far as it's functionality. I can garner information from disperate sources that I wouldn't have access to save for the internet's use of IP addresses. A bunch of windows boxes with IE on them dosn't constitute access in the strictest sense. It's also incompatable with the nature of what people really mean when they say online.
PejVHF8LRIgynjB0dqjTuH4/8A-Z9#sSQV74sR>S4983w0cSM
I've done some thinking and research -- direct observation, experiment, and scholarly -- about this issue. The uncopyedited version of my new chapter for my ancient book, The Virtual Community, is at http://www.rheingold.com/VirtualCommunity.html The new MIT Press edition, including the new chapter and an extensive bibliography for those who care to look at the actual social science research that has been conducted, will be available November 1. http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262681 218
The short answer -- it's easy to be glib about the subject, easy to theorize from your armchair, and easy to miss the big picture. I don't claim to have a black-and-white answer, but I do claim to have made a serious attempt to elevate the level of discourse to include the many ambiguities and shades of gray that seem to be lost in the usual "it IS community/it ISN'T community" debates.
Well.. I have the same set of people, whom I have never met in person, who I speak with on a daily basis about a great deal of things, for the past 5 years or so. Are they not part of my 'virtual community'?
I order supplies at work online, and deal with sales people virtually all the time. I almost never talk to them on the phone.. aren't they part of my virtual community?
I've never met my stock broker in person.. I look at my account online, email him, and talk to him on the phone (good to do SOME things on the phone)_. Isn't htat kind of virtual?
And I videoconference with our head office 4000 miles away. Isn't that 'virtual'?
Lockard addresses several ideals about online communities. Some of these pertain to whether the Internet will be the Great Leveler, producing a classless, commonly-owned, universally accessible forum for communication. Lockard says this is false.
Fair enough. The Internet is not free. Getting connected requires owning or accessing a certain amount of equipment, having a certain amount of free time to spend online rather than working, a certain level of technical skill, and basic literacy. The same could be said for living in Wellesly, Andover, Concord, or any of the other upscale physical communities surrounding Boston. The median household yearly income in Massachusetts is about $29K; the average asessed tax value of houses in Concord is around $394K. This is not inclusive. I wouldn't call them diverse communities, either.
"Cybericity does not replicate material communities in a parallel world where we can reformulate communality." I also agree with this. I don't use the Internet to get closer to my physical community. I use it to get information about it. For instance:
The Internet does as much for physical community building as the phone book: I go there to find information, which might lead me to go out in my neighborhood. It doesn't create social relationships by itself. I have to go interact.
Why should online communities mirror geographical ones? Yes, it's important to participate in my geographic community, and it would be swell if folks used the Internet to strengthen participation. This isn't the benchmark for whether something constitutes a community.
Community is a social process. Lockard is correct that it is more than a mere "electronic affinity group". There are websites I check frequently, like Slashdot or the Boston Globe, and then there are communities I belong to. The distinction is whether one treats the site as a source of information or as a group of people whose input you want.
For instance, I've run a mailing list for women martial artists for about four years. Some posts are for information, like "how do I train after knee surgery", and are posted because someone out there has that information. Others are for feedback ("I'm facing this situation, what's your take on it") or just social ("wish me luck on my belt test"), because the poster wants to talk about it with her peers. That transformation from information source to peer is what makes it a community.
So, in summary, Lockard is right that the Internet is not a panacea to the inequities we see in society, nor is it revitalizing involvement in our neighborhoods, though it does contain some elements of that. He is incorrect that a community requires a physical presence.
On a tangent, I've been pondering over what conditions foster community. Some factors are:
Any thoughts on this?
--tangram