Hey guys, three weeks to go! Yippee, here’s my tutorial presentation for The Virtual Community: Reading Digital Culture
Since the summer of 1985 Howard Rheingold has been a member of the virtual community WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), progressively seeing it grow from consisting of a few hundred members to consisting of a few thousand members. Rheingold defines virtual communities as “social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”. Becoming interested in the impact of virtual communities, Rheingold wishes to “inform the wider population about the online and offline importance of cyberspace to political liberties and the way virtual communities are likely to change our experience of the real world as individuals and communities”.
Kicking off this article, Rheingold explains his own involvement with WELL, colouring a picture of what it is like with his own personal experiences in the virtual community where his ‘online’ life with his ‘online’ communities and his ‘online’ friends transcend IRL (“in[to] real life” as Rheingold explains).
His own experiences illustrate the very expansive capabilities of online virtual communities where Rheingold highlights the number of intercontinental sub-communities he became a part of, and the different realms of information he was able to access because of the various branches of the network he belonged to. Furthermore, Rheingold points out that what happens in virtual communities is, in essence, exactly the same to real life interaction minus our bodies. Adding to this, Rheingold discusses people’s uses for virtual communities, where some use virtual communities as a form of psychotherapy and others to pretend to be someone else away from their real life.
Do you agree that what happens in virtual communities is in essence, the same as what happens in real life interaction, minus our physical presence?
Rheingold’s illustration of his time spent on WELL made me think about my own experiences online and in virtual communities and I found that his ideas rang very true with my own experiences. One of my experiences in particular seemed to have fit the cookie cutter shape of what virtual communities provide in terms of personal fulfilment and the effects on real life.
Are you a part of a virtual online community or have you ever been? (MySpace, Forums, Facebook, Bebo, Freindster, Hi-5) If so, what have been your experiences in terms of the transcendence from offline to online, your purpose in being part of that virtual community and how this use could have effectively changed your real life experiences?
Continuing Rheingold points out the new interconnectedness of technology and the ease at which we connect “two previously independent, mature, highly decentralizes technologies”. This is at most to allow us to gain perspective on the ways technology has changed and affected our real life experiences. Rheingold continues to argue that because of this change in people’s lives due to technology, social experiments arise at the prospect of new technologies because wherever CMC (computer mediated communication) becomes available people build virtual communities within it. Rheingold suggests that the reason for this comes from the break down of community in the real world, while our hunger for community grows.
Rheingold gives the example of APRANET, the first computer network created in the 1970s so that the Department of Defence sponsored researchers could exchange information from computer to computer from which followed the emergence of computer conferencing to build social relationships across space and time. From the emergence of APRANET came computer conferencing which saw the rise of Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) where information could be sent over many alternate nodes over the Net and it’s loosely interconnected computer networks. Rheingold explains that such information and communication that was being passed around a distributed resource with no central control saw the birth of anarchic conversation that takes advantage of the Net’s grassroots system where information can pass any of its obstacles on an alternate route.
How do you think Bulletin Board Systems and computer conferencing has changed since the years of APRANET? What are this significant differences between an online community then and an online community now? Do you think the users have changed? In what way? The purpose of BBSs?
So anyone also doing the Communications unit this semester will understand that the Net’s grassroots system is the system where by everything becomes connected, and not from one central location. Like Rheingold explains, from one grass seed grows multiple grass roots, from those roots, grow more adjacent roots and so on and so forth, eventually building into an interconnected tree from which information can be passed around and received.
Rheingold’s purpose in demonstrating this grass root system on the Net and in BBSs is to draw comparisons with the grass root system that connect continents and people, making space and time almost fluid, illustrating the convergence of the Net and computer conferencing systems. Rheingold again draws upon his experience with the WELL where the WELL community went form a contained , small virtual community to one that opens up onto the Net’s worldwide network.
What are some grass-roots connections you can make?
(e.g., My MySpace (virtual community #1) links to Deviantart.com (virtual community #2) which links to a person’s artwork, that is ‘favourited’ by some other user who has artwork ‘favourited’ by other artists who link to their personal artwork sites that are accessed by their friends, family etc, which can all be led back to my MySpace page)
Rheingold concludes acknowledging that he, himself has been colonised because of his involvement with the virtual communities which saw change in his own life. Rheingold talks about his friends all over the world and the fact that his life has been changed by the transcendence of the online into the offline.
Sorry about this blog entry’s length. There were a few technical join-the-dots in this article!
Rheingold, Howard. "The Virtual Community." Reading Digital Culture. Ed. David Trend. Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001, pp. 272-80
6 comments:
Re: Virtual Communities and RL:
Much like Rheingold, I have also had the avatars on online forums, the very place where most virtual communities arise, come to life IRL. Some, becoming my closest friends – one becoming my housemate! Most of my interaction in virtual communities came from when I was in my early teens where shyness was my biggest downfall. Relating back to Rheingold’s point that some people use virtual communities as a form of psychotherapy and to ‘be someone else’ I found myself using the virtual communities as a way to develop friendships which I could not do in my real-life communities when I was younger – eventually easing me out of my shell in real life.
I think this demonstrates Rheingold’s idea where virtual communities can change our experiences in the real world. Had I not partaken in the virtual communities when I was younger, perhaps my experience in the real world today would be a lot different – one clouded by the inability to communicate without shyness.
I think this relates back to the idea of the net, and in this case the virtual community on the net, and the ideas connected to our identities. From my experience, practicing communication in virtual communities has helped me hone my communicative abilities IRL, establishing my own identity which was, prior to my involvement with virtual communities, one of shyness, but rather an identity that is capable of effective communication in real life.
Interesting presentation :P
I still think interaction in the virtual world and real life is somewhat different, even though communication within each space can transcend and affect each other(if that makes sense)...though some things said in cyberspace can reflect reality, the way we act in the virtual world does contrast quite a bit - especially since you an act under a pseudonym or fake identity. People can say whatever they want to say online without much consequence so I guess that's the main difference.
I've been a part of a few virtual communities...and while some people actually do treat other people online as their 'friends', this eventually fizzles somewhere down the track because they never log on anymore. People can meet up in real life after meeting each other on the internet, but I don't know how often that occurs..probably hardly ever. In this sense, you can make heaps of friends in the virtual world but you'll probably never see them face to face because of location or whatever. You also never really quite know a person until you've met them personally either(well thats my opinion anyway).
I think BBS's are still quite popular ways of interacting with each other today...there are so many out there it really depends on your interests i suppose. I think Rheingold is definitely on the mark when he suggests how the virtual affects our reality - you can see how it affects popular culture even today (ie with the rick astley voted for 'best act ever' @ the MTV awards thing...).
Soulja Boy also apparently used some sorts of 'grassroots' system by distributing his music under pseudo names, and using social websites such as myspace to popularize his music.
In many ways the virtual world is now part of who we are, and the popularity of social wbesites only serves to emphasize our need to feel connected to peers of similar interests and traits. It makes us feel like we belong somewhere, and this can definitely affect our personal values/attitudes as a result.
I agree with Jakki in that I think interaction in the virtual world differs greatly to that in the real world. Articulating your thoughts and feelings in the virtual world is completely different to RL. You can say something completely contentious or false and not have to look anybody in the eye or worry about what they think of you.
You only have to look at these blogs to see this. In any tutorial at uni strong, free-flowing conversation is rarely held for the duration of the class. This is may be due to a variety of reasons: people might be too shy and intimidated by speaking up in front of others, they might have something controversial to say but want to avoid confrontation, or they might know what they want to say but can’t physically articulate themselves. Within this virtual community we have now though, it is easy to sit down and write anything you want because you have time to think about it, and you don’t have to speak it out in front of a room full of people. This can be applied to most online communities and demonstrates the difference in communicating in the two different environments.
This topic takes me back to when I was in year 7/8 and ICQ was a popular chat system/online community. Like Kylie I used to be fairly shy and when I was 12/13/14 found the thought of talking to girls extremely daunting. I went to an all boys school so I wasn’t used to socializing with girls. Then ICQ came along and I was able to build up a nice little network of girls from schools in my area. It was great talking to girls online as I had time to think about what I was going to say and craft my strategy carefully about how I was to persuade these girls that I was ‘cool’ rather than the gimp that actually sat behind the computer at home. Then when I would see these girls at socials and stuff I found conversing a lot easier.
Though this may be changing with all the video conferencing technology available on the internet, I think the main difference between the virtual and RL is this level of anonymity and the ability to strategize about the way you want to present yourself.
Oh yeah, just quickly: I know the popular British band The Arctic Monkeys successfully used a 'grassroots' system to build up a fan base. They released alot of their songs online and were able to build a lot fo hype before they released their first album. I believe they were one of the first mainstream/pop bands to do so.
I think Alison said on the lecture that WELL used to be a site that cpllected monthly fees and required 'financial stability.' Please correct me if i'm wrong but I think WELL is still based on members paying a monthly fee. And of course, you could choose the cheaper 'basic plan' or the 'full access' advanced plan if you can afford a bit more. They reckon that by paying a fee, the members are quaranteed quality discussions in a civiliced matter without any morons interfering. Is this suggesting that if you can afford to join this community, you are automaticly regarded as a 'good net user' or 'civilised' in your opinions? Just a thought. In my opinion, Rheingold sounds a bit obsessed with this site, and if he rather spends time with his online mates than his family, it certainly affects his real life(negatively)rather than reflects it. (At least I would be pissed of if my boyfried sat all night 'having a intellectual converation' with one of his online buddies.)
I agree with you Maija, I found that Rheingold just seemed obsessed with WELL rather than being interested in the actual effects of virtual/online communities.
The whole article felt like he was praising and promoting WELL.
=S
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