A Few Questions...
A few folks from Team Ochre indicated that they'd like me to continue posting questions to the blog so here goes (From Monday's lecture)
Virtual Community Attraction: Why People Hang Out Online - Catherine M. Ridings & David Gefen
In this reading, Ridings & Gefen claim that 'information exchange' is the No. 1 reason people join virtual communities:
What does this suggest about the place of community in the 'information economy'?
Do you think this reason is a primary factor in the formation of 'real' communities?
A survey of current research on online communities of practice – C. M. Johnson
What is a community of practice?
How do you think it differs from what we have termed 'virtual communities'?
"Virtual communities are defined as designed communities using current networked technology, whereas communities of practice emerge within the designed community via the ways their participants use the designed community."
Do you think this distinction is a valid one?
What examples can you think of that demonstrate emergent practices in the formation of community?
Bridging Temporal and Spatial "Gaps": The role of information and communication technologies in defining communities – Paul Baker & Andrew Ward
"While we may join a virtual community because of an interest we have, unless that interest affects us in our daily lives, in our lives as physically instantiated and geographically centred individuals andcitizens, there is no good reason to believe that we will long continue an active membership in the virtual community."
What are your thoughts on Baker & Wards' conclusion?
Which communities do you think have 'physically instantiated' effects?
Which do not?
posted by Anonymous @ 12:19 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
Definitely my whole experience so far of virtual communities has been simply to gather information and sometimes exchange a little my self. Sometimes that has delved into a kind of human contact: For instance if I've had a technical computing problem, then headed to aforum, found someone else there searching for the same answer, then found an answer somewhere else, I've gone back and told that person my findings. There was no need to do that from a purely technical point of view because I'd found my answer somewhere else. Yet I empathised with that person as I knew what it was like to need an answer to that question myself. Thats about as far as I've gone with it in any vaguely social form. Yet I don't deny that social exchange is already (and is going to be even more so) a huge part of the internet. As mike says, we all seek information about our interests, and information and social exchange go hand in hand. In my view, when (not if) the internet finally becomes a fully immersable 3d experince with characters and avatars, we are going to see a whole new style of information and social exchange. Like going down to a seedy virtual bar to find out where to download illegal software etc.. You'll have to be firends with the 'bouncer' to get in.
Hi Mai Koto,
Your last point is interesting, in classifying the Team Ochre Blog or WebCT as communities because of people actively participating in them. I do agree that these are communities, but the reason for the participation I think should be taken into consideration. Kling & Courtright (2003) refer to "IT-led" communities (as non-voluntary forums, such as online education forums) and "IT-supported" communities (in which "sociability" and mutual interest play a larger role). While I think that our Blogs are definitely a community of sorts, due to their compulsory nature, I would separate them from the category of 'communities' I use to describe other groups that are formed/joined on a purely voluntarily basis. Maybe the latter type of group should take on Macdonald's phrase of "Commune-ity", given the underlying assumption that we feel and interact within voluntary communities in line with our own personal styles (such as preferred language, humour, etc... which I would therefore classify more as communing) than in this type of forum, in which some of the communication structure and the way we *speak* is imposed (eg. referencing, etc...)
But hey, I'm open to other ideas on this :)
Sammyjo
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