L. Christie Linger
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 3
Networked Communities
Rheingold like Wesch sees the internet as a new way that society has formed communities. They both bring up really good points. We do everything online that we do in person. At first I was skeptical but then I started thinking and really it’s true. We can kiss through blowing a kiss into a webcam. We can smile through a colon and a parenthesisJ. We can laugh by writing lol. Some people have relationships online. I won’t even go into sexting or whatever lies beyond that with webcams. We have created a way to live our lives online. We are instantly connected with people all over the world in communities we have created.
Being instantly connected to multiple networks with people in the United States and other countries that partake in those networks is something that I have taken for granted. Until Rheingold mentioned that not all countries have networked I had never thought about it. I go to Facebook and can instantly find out what is going on with the people in that community and I can let them know what is going on with me. I can email every student in my school network through typing something as simple as all students. All of these things are at my fingertips. Rheingold has pointed out that some countries have not updated their national technology to allow as many networked communities that we in the U.S. experience.
Rheingold has a very good observation about the places that have not updated their networking, “refuse to join the Net in its widest sense and face being left behind, or to join the Net and face social upheaval” (Rheingold Ch 8). The phenomenon of online communities has its pros and cons. The internet moves so fast and is constantly evolving therefore making our societies evolve faster. If other countries don’t jump on board the face being out of the loop. It’s like if a person who uses Facebook regularly to message friends, see what is going on with their friends and family, and to communicate what is going on with them doesn’t use the site for a week, when hey log back in even though it has only been a week, they have missed out on so much. They could have missed information about who broke up with whom, about whose family member passed away, or who had a baby. Our culture relays so much on technology that there have been times that I find out things like this online. One time I missed a post that a friend was pregnant. It was a couple months later and I saw her. I was shocked and asked why she didn’t call and share the good news (since we are such close friends). Her response was that she had posted it on Facebook so she could just tell everyone at once and it never crossed her mind that I might not have seen it. If you take these concepts and apply it to a whole country think of how much that country misses out on every day. Not just simple stuff like Facebook but important stuff. World news, political decisions, almost everything is online. But if the culture plugs in to our networked communities will they be losing some other part of their culture. They jury is still out on that one, but personally I think it is better to be plugged in and change a little than be unplugged and left in the dark.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Reading Response 3
L. Christie Linger
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 3
Networked Communities
Rheingold like Wesch sees the internet as a new way that society has formed communities. They both bring up really good points. We do everything online that we do in person. At first I was skeptical but then I started thinking and really it’s true. We can kiss through blowing a kiss into a webcam. We can smile through a colon and a parenthesisJ. We can laugh by writing lol. Some people have relationships online. I won’t even go into sexting or whatever lies beyond that with webcams. We have created a way to live our lives online. We are instantly connected with people all over the world in communities we have created.
Being instantly connected to multiple networks with people in the United States and other countries that partake in those networks is something that I have taken for granted. Until Rheingold mentioned that not all countries have networked I had never thought about it. I go to Facebook and can instantly find out what is going on with the people in that community and I can let them know what is going on with me. I can email every student in my school network through typing something as simple as all students. All of these things are at my fingertips. Rheingold has pointed out that some countries have not updated their national technology to allow as many networked communities that we in the U.S. experience.
Rheingold has a very good observation about the places that have not updated their networking, “refuse to join the Net in its widest sense and face being left behind, or to join the Net and face social upheaval” (Rheingold Ch 8). The phenomenon of online communities has its pros and cons. The internet moves so fast and is constantly evolving therefore making our societies evolve faster. If other countries don’t jump on board the face being out of the loop. It’s like if a person who uses Facebook regularly to message friends, see what is going on with their friends and family, and to communicate what is going on with them doesn’t use the site for a week, when hey log back in even though it has only been a week, they have missed out on so much. They could have missed information about who broke up with whom, about whose family member passed away, or who had a baby. Our culture relays so much on technology that there have been times that I find out things like this online. One time I missed a post that a friend was pregnant. It was a couple months later and I saw her. I was shocked and asked why she didn’t call and share the good news (since we are such close friends). Her response was that she had posted it on Facebook so she could just tell everyone at once and it never crossed her mind that I might not have seen it. If you take these concepts and apply it to a whole country think of how much that country misses out on every day. Not just simple stuff like Facebook but important stuff. World news, political decisions, almost everything is online. But if the culture plugs in to our networked communities will they be losing some other part of their culture. They jury is still out on that one, but personally I think it is better to be plugged in and change a little than be unplugged and left in the dark.
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 3
Networked Communities
Rheingold like Wesch sees the internet as a new way that society has formed communities. They both bring up really good points. We do everything online that we do in person. At first I was skeptical but then I started thinking and really it’s true. We can kiss through blowing a kiss into a webcam. We can smile through a colon and a parenthesisJ. We can laugh by writing lol. Some people have relationships online. I won’t even go into sexting or whatever lies beyond that with webcams. We have created a way to live our lives online. We are instantly connected with people all over the world in communities we have created.
Being instantly connected to multiple networks with people in the United States and other countries that partake in those networks is something that I have taken for granted. Until Rheingold mentioned that not all countries have networked I had never thought about it. I go to Facebook and can instantly find out what is going on with the people in that community and I can let them know what is going on with me. I can email every student in my school network through typing something as simple as all students. All of these things are at my fingertips. Rheingold has pointed out that some countries have not updated their national technology to allow as many networked communities that we in the U.S. experience.
Rheingold has a very good observation about the places that have not updated their networking, “refuse to join the Net in its widest sense and face being left behind, or to join the Net and face social upheaval” (Rheingold Ch 8). The phenomenon of online communities has its pros and cons. The internet moves so fast and is constantly evolving therefore making our societies evolve faster. If other countries don’t jump on board the face being out of the loop. It’s like if a person who uses Facebook regularly to message friends, see what is going on with their friends and family, and to communicate what is going on with them doesn’t use the site for a week, when hey log back in even though it has only been a week, they have missed out on so much. They could have missed information about who broke up with whom, about whose family member passed away, or who had a baby. Our culture relays so much on technology that there have been times that I find out things like this online. One time I missed a post that a friend was pregnant. It was a couple months later and I saw her. I was shocked and asked why she didn’t call and share the good news (since we are such close friends). Her response was that she had posted it on Facebook so she could just tell everyone at once and it never crossed her mind that I might not have seen it. If you take these concepts and apply it to a whole country think of how much that country misses out on every day. Not just simple stuff like Facebook but important stuff. World news, political decisions, almost everything is online. But if the culture plugs in to our networked communities will they be losing some other part of their culture. They jury is still out on that one, but personally I think it is better to be plugged in and change a little than be unplugged and left in the dark.
Reading Response 2
L. Christie Linger
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 2
YouTube: A New Kind of Community or a New Way to Communicate?
Want to be unique and individual but desire to be a part of a community? Then YouTube is the place for you. Michael Wesch, professor and creator of the Digital Ethnography of YouTube Project has come up with the concept of networked individualism. This is the idea that YouTube has become so popular because it provides us with the experience of a community yet thrives off of everyone contributing unique and individualistic content. YouTube has not changed the community atmosphere that we have been used to for centuries; it has only changed the medium in which we interact with one another.
Youtube feeds off of the desire of individuals seeking to gain video popularity. To do so, people share video blogs and comment on one another’s videos. People try to get the most unique, creative or individual idea. By creating a unique video people are enhancing their feelings of being an individual. At the same time the video is becoming popular and allowing individuals to feel a part of a community. Therefore, YouTube has created a cycle in which it takes being an individual to be a part of the community and being a part of a community to be an individual.
Since online communities like YouTube enhance and create networked individualism it allows for individuals to create who they are. Online, you can be who you want to be to the community that you are in. This creates a question about if the individuals on YouTube are being real or fake. There have been instances where it has been found out that people on Youtube were posting fake videos. An example is when the creators of lonleygirl15 made up a teenage girl blog and produced it. People got upset when they found out people on YouTube were pretending to be something they were not. But isn’t everybody? We are only showing people what we want them to see. So in a sense we are all hiding our whole selves just as the pretenders. This raises a series of other questions. Is anyone on YouTube real? Are we all fake? The makers of lonleygil15 wrote “She is no more real or fictious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us” (“An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube”). If we as individuals on YouTube are fake, pretending to be something we are not, only showing a particular side of ourselves, or how ever we want to see it, then it is a realistic conclusion to come to that the community we have created in Youtube is fake as well.
Whether or not we as individuals have created a community in which we believe ourselves to be real even when we are not, we have created a community that has changed the world. We have not created a community that has changed how we as humans treat one another but instead have changed the medium in which we interact. For example, internet interaction has had little effect on gender roles. We have kept the same things that are a part of our culture we have just changed the way we communicate them. We reach more people, we reach them faster, but we are still communicating the same things. We have not changed out morals we have just changed the way we communicate them. For example, the Hug Project was started on YouTube as a way to promote peace, happiness, and a since of community. Because it was posted on YouTube the project was taken worldwide in a matter of hours. People all over the world took part in the Hug Project. YouTube has become a huge part of how we as individuals connect with one another; it has changed the way we as individuals have connected in a community.
Dr. Barnes-Pietruszynski
English 303-01
11 November 2010
Reading Response 2
YouTube: A New Kind of Community or a New Way to Communicate?
Want to be unique and individual but desire to be a part of a community? Then YouTube is the place for you. Michael Wesch, professor and creator of the Digital Ethnography of YouTube Project has come up with the concept of networked individualism. This is the idea that YouTube has become so popular because it provides us with the experience of a community yet thrives off of everyone contributing unique and individualistic content. YouTube has not changed the community atmosphere that we have been used to for centuries; it has only changed the medium in which we interact with one another.
Youtube feeds off of the desire of individuals seeking to gain video popularity. To do so, people share video blogs and comment on one another’s videos. People try to get the most unique, creative or individual idea. By creating a unique video people are enhancing their feelings of being an individual. At the same time the video is becoming popular and allowing individuals to feel a part of a community. Therefore, YouTube has created a cycle in which it takes being an individual to be a part of the community and being a part of a community to be an individual.
Since online communities like YouTube enhance and create networked individualism it allows for individuals to create who they are. Online, you can be who you want to be to the community that you are in. This creates a question about if the individuals on YouTube are being real or fake. There have been instances where it has been found out that people on Youtube were posting fake videos. An example is when the creators of lonleygirl15 made up a teenage girl blog and produced it. People got upset when they found out people on YouTube were pretending to be something they were not. But isn’t everybody? We are only showing people what we want them to see. So in a sense we are all hiding our whole selves just as the pretenders. This raises a series of other questions. Is anyone on YouTube real? Are we all fake? The makers of lonleygil15 wrote “She is no more real or fictious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us” (“An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube”). If we as individuals on YouTube are fake, pretending to be something we are not, only showing a particular side of ourselves, or how ever we want to see it, then it is a realistic conclusion to come to that the community we have created in Youtube is fake as well.
Whether or not we as individuals have created a community in which we believe ourselves to be real even when we are not, we have created a community that has changed the world. We have not created a community that has changed how we as humans treat one another but instead have changed the medium in which we interact. For example, internet interaction has had little effect on gender roles. We have kept the same things that are a part of our culture we have just changed the way we communicate them. We reach more people, we reach them faster, but we are still communicating the same things. We have not changed out morals we have just changed the way we communicate them. For example, the Hug Project was started on YouTube as a way to promote peace, happiness, and a since of community. Because it was posted on YouTube the project was taken worldwide in a matter of hours. People all over the world took part in the Hug Project. YouTube has become a huge part of how we as individuals connect with one another; it has changed the way we as individuals have connected in a community.
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