Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

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

http://www.facebook.com/

What is the brief or focus of this community

Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.

Retrieved May 12 2009, from http://www.facebook.com/

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

Facebook is a free-access social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.^[1] Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus.

Retrieved May 12 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

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

Peter Kollock (1999)

• Anticipated reciprocity

• Increased Recognition

• Sense of Efficacy

• Sense of Community

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

An example of a message:

my bday:

hey cous
it's my birthday in a few weeks and am organising a get together on friday. heaps of people are away over this easter time so am doing a small low key get together. Would love you and jen to come along....Will ask your brother too....you can always crash at mine. anyway..hope you are wel.

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.

Participants are signed in under their own name so they are not anonymous. If you write a message in a private window only the recipient can see it. Only people you list as friends can see your page.

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

• Can compliment real life communities

• Can provide large amounts of information

• Can provide connections over great distances instantly

• Ability to connect with people of similar interests/needs/ concerns

• Can foster understanding and unity

• Speed of information sharing

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

• You lose that face to face interaction that can be vital to a ‘real’ relationship.

• It is not accessible to those who are not technologically/ computer savvy.

• Delusional reliance on virtual communities

• Limited communication tools