Reading from Anita Blanchard this week has suggested that rather than CMC having negative affects as suggested by the case of Stewart I blooged about last week, rather, there are a plethora of negative effects of such communication. For example, she suggests that CMC groups help replace the relationships which people lose as a result of becoming more isolated from their neighbours. It is a common belief that due to moral panics about who you could be talking to, and “Do you know who your neighbours really are?” that these relationships have deteriorated. She therefore argues that communication online helps replace these feelings on interaction.
In addition, becoming more connected with people online and through virtual communities you have actively chosen to be a member of and contribute to, rather than having your choice of community dictated to you as a result of your geographical location, you reap the benefits of social relationships with like minded others. This, I would assume, would give you the advantage of feeling more of a sense of community in this context , rather than in a real life context where these decisions are made for you.
An interesting finding was that some researchers have shown that participation in virtual communities can increase participation in face-to-face communities, therefore the benefits are not strictly limited to online communication only and can be carried over to improve face-to-face social skills. However, I would argue that this is not the case 100% of the time as shown by the case of Stewart, and I would assume many more like it.
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I think the benefits you talk about are interesting and I can definitely understand most of them. Though I agree that RL community is not what is once was and that a lot of people don't even know their neighbours, don;t shop at the local shop, and don't hang out at the village hall (!), I'm not sure the point that 'CMC groups help replace the relationships which people lose as a result of becoming more isolated from their neighbours ' is entirely positive.
ReplyDeleteOnline community is often formed as a result of shared interest. There is not often a mix of races, interests, ages, sexualities,personalities as there is in a real community. People usually gather online as the result of one or two shared interests and In my opinion this isn't a positive substitute to most normal communities. As we talked about last week, the internet allows people who share interests or experience to 'meet' online, no matter how unusual this is. But if we all only socialised with people similar to us, I don't think it would make for a very rich community. What do you recon?
I agree, I think it's one of the disadvantages of online communities, that although it is possible to speak with people who you wouldn't normally meet IRL, different sexualities, races, ages etc. how often is that actually happening?
ReplyDeleteAlthough having said that, you do not know at first or even at all, the age, race or sexuality of people you talk to online. This means that maybe after a few conversations, you might learn that you're talking to someone from an ethnic background you've never spoken to before and therefore you did not have any preconcieved ideas which could cloud the impression you make of them.
But that can only happen if you are infact talking to people you wouldn't normally talk to in real life, and as you can never be 100% sure who you're talking to online, how can this be measured?
That's very true....you don't know who you're talking to. But i think the thing to consider is how online communities are arranged. Most are brought together by common interest and only a few geographically. And still this quite limiting; only a certain demographic from an area will use online communities...it's still never an evenly spread sample of people.
ReplyDeleteThis goes back to a point I made last week that VCs (in my opinion) may prevent different people from mixing. Although you should read Dave's reply to this.