I guess that it's a hot, and wide, enough topic
to merit more than one column, and with that in mind, here comes: Community
- The Sequel. In our first episode, we found
that our heroes are hungry for contact, yet remain at home and wait, or
stand around as wallflowers at a party, hoping someone will invite them
to dance. This time we'll stare, open mouthed, as they actually reach out
to try and touch somebody.
There's certainly no lack of internet technologies
that allow contact, either one-on-one, or "community". Newsgroups and e-mail
based discussion groups were among the first, and although today these
are often seen as rather primitive technological alternatives, they did,
and still do, get the job done. And of course
there's chat. I admit that I'm the wrong person to give an in-depth examination
of chat since I don't seem to have the patience for it. It's worth examining
whether chat offers "community of the moment" or "continuing community",
but actually examining that would be an arduous
task.
Perhaps a definition of community is called for here. After all, maybe
we all use the same word, but refer to different concepts. Admittedly,
a dictionary definition isn't particularly helpful. On the one hand, it
seems to lack the distinguishing characteristics that cause us to see one
grouping of people as mere acquaintances, another as community, while on
the other, it should be an accepted given that virtual, or internet, community
will be unavoidably different from traditional community. Still, a dictionary
definition can serve as a starting point. Webster's for instance defines
community (among other definitions) as:
An online community doesn't consist of people living in the same anything,
or under the same laws. As to the second definition, common interests is
definitely a defining factor, but without "living together". The "participation
in common" of the third definition is perhaps a focal point of community,
except that too many instances exist in which there is common participation
without community.
Often, what seems to be an online community may
be no more than a common lurking ground. Sometimes people who frequent
a bar do so because they have something in common with others who are there
(this seems to happen more on television than in real life, but I don't
have enough experience to really know), but more often than not, though
they have common reasons for being there, they don't coagulate into a community.
This might be called the waiting room metaphor
of internet participation: People share a common space, but occupy it for
different reasons, and thus, although a commonality of space and/or time
exists, no true contact is established.
Does everybody really want all that contact? My
own, first hand, experience of an internet community (at least the experience
that I originally saw as the basis for what became this column) lasted
almost a year and concluded about a year and a half ago. The community
in question was a group of perhaps 200 educators who, through the act of
joining the community, ostensibly expressed a commitment to that group.
But though the leadership of the group tried in numerous ways to more actively
involve the membership, hardly 10% of that membership ever assumed more
than passive participation. The idea of community was certainly attractive
(and even somewhat novel back then), but it seems that the idea alone wasn't
enough to bring it about. Some people seem
to have more than their fair share of contact without online community.
But I promised something else. I promised that in
this column we'd see how people try and actually contact others. To tell
the truth, there are truly countless examples of this. These examples can
be found in newsgroups, in listservs, in discussion forums, and as responses
to queries on innumerable sites. It's not hard to take
a peek at these. What is hard to determine is whether those that take
part do so once and then move on, or whether they develop some sense
of commitment toward the virtual entity that, for an ever so short
moment, they've become part of. Do people who post messages on a public
site return there daily in order to see whether they've generated any reactions,
and only after perhaps a week of returning decide that it's time to move
on? Have internauts heard so much about this virtual community stuff that
they want to give it a try, but after doing so say to themselves that they've
understood the idea and turn toward newer and more exciting adventures?
I admit to feeling a bit of discomfort in bringing up a commercially
oriented metaphor at the end, but I can't help feeling that most web surfers
who have a one time fling with internet community are most similar to department
store shoppers. They may want to buy something, but more than that, they
want to enjoy the experience of having a good look at what's available.
Salespeople can perhaps make a sale by approaching them and trying to offer
them help, but more often than not, it's more a case of window shopping
than of actually purchasing something.
That's it for this edition. Reactions and suggestions
can be sent to:
back to the Boidem Contents Page
Return to Communications & Computers
In Education - Main Page
From the Boidem -
February 21, 1999*: Just browsing,
thank you.
an occasional column on computers and information technologies in everyday
life