WEEK 7 "My Essay Topic"

4. Writing in 1994, close to the birth of the internet, Howard Rheingold said "those of us who are brought into contact with each other by means of CMC [computer-mediated communication] technology find ourselves challenged by this many-to-many capability—challenged to consider whether it is possible for us to build some kind of community together" (Rheingold, Howard, 1994. "Introduction.' In The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. HarperPerennial: New York. p. 12.)

Critically consider this question in terms of a contemporary social network, and discuss whether Rheingold's ideal of community has been achieved. You must draw on academic literature in the field in framing your essay.

I have considered to focus particularly on Facebook or online gaming as the contemporary social network.

WEEK 7 " What is a Scholarly Source"

Peer Review Test

Anna Selleh, "Bionic implants raise ethical questions" 

Is not a scholarly source

Igor Ristić, "The Virtual Public Sphere" 

Is not a scholarly source

Philip N. Howard and Malcolm R. Parks, "Social Media and Political Change: Capacity, Constraint, and Consequence" 

Is a scholarly source

S O Hansson, "Implant Ethics" 
Is a scholarly source 

Vacha Dave, Saikat Guha, and Yin Zhang, "Measuring and Fingerprinting Click-Spam in Ad Networks" 

Is a scholarly source

Henry Jenkins, "Media and Imagination: A Short History of American Science Fiction" 

Is not a scholarly source

Greg Goldberg, "Rethinking the public/virtual sphere: The problem with participation" 

Is a scholarly source

Communications Research Unit, Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, "History of Communications in Australia" 

Is not a scholarly source

Stephen Brook, "Radio revenue goes backwards in July" 
Is not a scholarly source

WEEK 5 "The Virtual Community"

"For Rheingold the virtual community arises when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships”. (Rheingold 1993 p. 5)

I agree with Rheingold’s view about online community. It is possible to bind a relationship or friendship through an online community. Because finding a community that you feel belonged to in your own society is not always easy. For example a Gay person living in a society that doesn’t accept his gender can influence this individual to feel depressed and alienated. However, meeting people online across the world that share the same feelings as him might become a huge support for him. I have personally formed a friendship between people that I have met online. As I’ve mention in my previous posts, I’ve been raised in Thailand, which is a completely different society to where I live now. One day I found an online avatar game (application) that had chat rooms for each region. Most surprisingly was that everyone in the Thailand chat room were Thai people that lived away from home like me. After a period of time we shared our more personal social networks e.g. Facebook and Instagram.

However, forming a relationship through an online community is not always easy. Because you never know how the person on your computer screen looks like, what’s their intention or how real they are. Meeting people online can become very dangerous in some cases. Therefore, you must be careful of the people who you meet online and most importantly be careful of how much you expose your own identity online.   


Source: http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/intro.html