As discovered from the lecture Dave said that a community is a network of relationships, and when you have people with the same interests in either forums, websites, or social networking sites, these shared characteristics create virtual communities. Although, i do think there are lots of different types of communities online that are different to offline communities.
Online you can expect there will be a forum which would share your own interests, take for example 'the worlds largest birding and wildlife community' from http://www.birdforum.net/, on this site you can discuss anything about birds with people around the world.
However, if you take the offline 'original' communities (i say original because this is what i believe it to be) where you would have the vicar there and the elderly and members of the community discussing and sharing their views and opinions. You do have forums online for people that are part of Manchester and other big cities like that where people can voice their thoughts about their community, although i believe that this then leaves quite a majority of the people that care about their communities - the elderly.
My grandad has just realised how to turn a computer, never mind entering a forum and voicing his opinion, in addition my gran probably doesn't even know what a computer is. In the not so distant future, yes i believe that off line communities will probably take place in online forums because not only will they understand how to use the inet, but also because people just don't have time to arrange meetings that everyone will be able to come to. People are too busy, and that is when i think online communities will be very successful.
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do you think these communties reflect what community offline really means? I think in a way they do, but the bring together more people with an interest group, rather than people from every walk of life, like living in Manchester does. Like Levy says they do start a new 'social bond', like reinventing what communites are, and the idea of communities are advancing with technology, but i can't help but think it is restricting the people who can take part in these discussions.
ReplyDeleteyeah that is what i mean. I think that the internet and virtual communities allow so many people that have different interests to interact. However, the traditional form of what a communitity was all about has.is sufering from it. I know times are changing that is why i think children should be educated about virtual communities and their benifits
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