Tutorial 6: the internet and onlie communities

1) Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating

Facebook- www.facebook.com

2) What is the brief or focus of this community

Facebook is a social networking sight where users can find and connect with friends, relatives and groups. It helps keep people updated.

3) What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute?

Facebook is extremely interactive and these are the services that allow this to take place:

• The wall- a pace on users profile pages that allow friends to post comments on
• Pokes- allows users to send a virtual “poke” to each other
• Photos- can be uploaded (as well a profile picture) which can be shared
• Status- allowing users to inform their friends about their actions

4) Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?

There are various reasons that people contribute to the community. It is a quick and easy way to keep updated on friends and family, as well as informing then on your happenings. People often find that it is a great leisure activity as photos can be viewed or you can chat to your friends. Facebook can be a fantastic tool for organising events as you can just post event information up and send it out as an invitation.

Companies sometimes join in order to advertise, promoting their service in a modern way that is relevant to the time.

People mostly seek community, a place where they can connect and keep in contact with other people. The question remains though; how much connection does it really provide? Is it actually isolating, limiting real life relationships or does it enhance the existing relationships?

5) Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).

“Thanks everyone for all the birthday wishes! I had a fantastic day with friend and family.” (this is a status update to that friends for the birthday wishes they had posted on the persons wall).

6) Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability.

Again there is the ethical issue of privacy; facebook is a site where everyone can access almost anyone’s information. There is also the ethical issue of identity; people can make up who they want to be. Regularly identity stealing takes place, especially that of celebrities.

There is no accountability, anyone can pretty much post anything.

7) Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity

Facebook comes with many benefits as it has no geographical boundaries, if you have access to internet you can become part of Facebook, a global community. This is very convenient in times like today where people regularly move, not just towns but countries and continents. Facebook provides a tool to continue to communicate in a quick and easy way to people across the world.

8) Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.

Traditional community give the opportunity for face to face communication, where body language and tone of voice is part of interaction. This is one of the biggest things that Facebook lacks. This is a major part of communication, a big part of what humans need. Facebook sometimes becomes a replacement for this which can lead to isolation rather than connection which is a huge problem in this century.