Digital Communities: The Journey So Far
In the past couple of weeks I have been swept up in the exploration of ‘digital communities’ and ‘social media’ and I have been drowning in theories, theorists, frameworks, practices, approaches etc. but this is where I come up to breath and gasp my overview through the medium that is my awesome blog.
My first introduction to this subject was through the readings from dana boyd, Rowan Wilken & Anthony McCosker. I particularly identified with the reading Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle (boyd, 2012) as it talked about the idea of being always connected to the network and how that is what it means to be always-on (boyd 2012, pg. 72), I identified with this because you can simply look around and see that many people are living this always-on lifestyle thanks to the help of technology like iPhone’s that keep us connected 24/7, I don’t know about you but my phone is never off, if I want to be discrete I will put it on silent.
So the first week opened my eyes to just how much this subject would relate to my own always on lifestyle and how it could take me from just living it to analysing how and why I am always on. In the second week we looked at ‘Social Theory & Social Media’ which sounds pretty dry but I did learn some interesting things, I learnt that sociality is the idea being together with others and that this can encompass online environments and this lead to discussions regarding virtual communities and networking. This is where I discovered something I had never even considered, this is where I learnt the secret art of defining Social Network Sites.
“We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system” (boyd & Ellison 2007)
In the third lecture much like many of my other lectures I spent a lot of time on Reddit, this time however was different it was actually for academic purposes!!! This lecture was a specific case study of Reddit Gonewild and whether it is a network, society or community. Now their were some conclusions we came to in regards to Reddit Gonewild but my personal feelings and experience with Reddit were not explored which is what I am going to do now. I first started using Reddit to entertain myself and strangely enough to read news so I was using it purely as a source of information but that changed. There is a media production company I follow called Roosterteeth and although they have their own site and YouTube channel their subreddit is where I felt I really became a member of the RT community, in this subreddit fans post art, videos and posts that relate to the company in some way and that also allows fans to discuss new content from the company. From my experience this a great way to bring fans together and promote a sense of community, in fact many ‘Community Days’ have been organised through this subreddit where fans in local areas get together in person. Another great aspect of this subreddit is the presence of RT staff, they will often comment or reply to others as well as supplying their own content to the page. So although some subreddits like Reddit Gonewild may not be seen as a community I believe the subreddits I experience are some of the strongest communities on the internet.
We also did stuff in week 4, specifically it was Blogging Practices and Case Studies which involved Publics, Counterpublics & Micropublics and blog fundamentals but I have typed about 600 words now so I won’t go on anymore for your sakes, besides you can always learn everything you need to know about blogging by blogging.
Look out for my next post in about a week, if it’s as big as this it shouldn’t be hard to miss.
Viva La Digital Communities!
