Virtual and Real Communities - Assignment Example

? Virtual and Real Communities Since the advent of modern-day technology, the academic arena has experienced many changes some to its favor while others are detrimental. One of the most notable areas as a result of technology has been the introduction and advancement of distance learning. Unlike the traditional methods of learning, distance learning took a different form of teaching that allowed people in different locations around the world to learn in real time and without many barriers in their way. Other areas of life picked up this model of communicating over the World Wide Web to increase the communication rates around the world (Doheny-Farina, 1998). This saw to the birth of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus that virtually brought people from many locations around the world into a community with many similarities to a real and geographically located one. This paper shall concern itself with the comparing and contrasting of these two types of communities. The advantages and disadvantages of each type of community shall be discussed and expounded upon to give a true picture of each type of community. The first part of this paper shall argue in the favor of online communities and the benefits they bring to the human community. First of all, the term ‘virtual community’ is a direct derivation of a 1993 book by the same title written by Howard Rheingold. Rheingold is one of the most known proponents of virtual communities and is even dubbed the first citizen of the internet (Gauntlett, 2008). He points out several benefits he attributes to virtual communities found solely on the internet. Generally, he points out that virtual communities encourage interaction between people with like minds who exchange ideas on a better and cheaper level compared to physical communities that require a lot of other factors for the interaction to be effective. All a virtual ‘resident’ of a given community needs is an internet connection to their communication gadget to contribute the way they deem positive to the community. The other benefit that can be attributed to virtual communities is that on the members’ health. There are communities specifically for health benefits. These include those with individuals suffering from a given type of disease like cancer or diabetes. These communities enable the members share information on the care they receive and ways of handling complex situations which other members may not be aware of (Horsley & Gauntlett, 2004). This group of communities, as Rheingold puts it, has been known to save many lives at a cheaper cost than real and geographically conscious ones would. One other advantage with these virtual communities is that, due to their virtual nature, they enable the members discuss issues they would otherwise find hard to discuss with other people on a face to face basis. Being virtual also enables the members seek the specific information required without being bothered with procedures that may not make sense to them in any way. Another evident advantage of being a member to a virtual community is it enables the members find ideas that they could not manage to get anywhere else without much of a hustle. Information has been of late flowing faster on social networks compared to other forms of media. Online platforms have enabled youths especially to air their voices to the wider world without a need for seeking out a government form of media (Howard & Jones, 2013). This has also forced politicians into taking their campaigns online since there are larger communities there whose votes can be tapped at a cheaper and more satisfying rate compared to physical campaigns. Few ideas are thus hidden from the public when a majority of the citizens are online where information easily goes viral and gets to most social site users. A fourth point in favor of virtual communities is the freedom that comes with the use of the sites that host the virtual communities. While the geographical and real communities would require a lot of factors for one to qualify as a full member of the community, virtual communities usually require but one’s name and email address to verify them as members of the community (Jones, 2008). Also, unlike physical communities where there is a leader or someone in charge who regulates most of the activities that occur and issues rewards and punishments, the online communities only have monitors who filter the contents of the group to keep the group focused on the required issues. This gives the members freedom to engage in a wide variety of topics that would usually lead to better informed members. There are no punishments or rewards that would discourage membership and hence the members feel free and accepted fully compared to physical communities. Given that virtual communities are real-time based, information flow is quick to find and thus enables the community members to get information as it happens (Mackay & O'Sullivan, 1999). The availability of chat rooms has enabled people to converse in real-time the same way they would in real life with the added advantage that it is suited to their advantage. It should be further known that there are no tensions caused by other people’s presence which would jeopardize the conversations. It has been psychologically proven that it is easier for people to share sensitive information virtually through media such as virtual communities and mobile phones as compared to face to face situations. Most information on the internet can be encrypted to keep out unwanted parties. Virtual communities formed by software companies such as BlackBerry have this feature where messages are not passed through any intermediaries that could snoop on the contents. It should also be kept in mind that the reputation of the online community host means a lot to the users. The very best, such a facebook, twitter, MySpace and others, have such great faith bestowed upon them by their users that the latter are quite fine transacting financial matters over these sites. These sites thus have the great opportunity of making money by charging a small fee on the services they offer. Due to the large number of users found on online communities, they have become a target for advertises who use the sites to reach out to potential customers. The sites thus charge the advertisers a fee to use their services. This has seen to generation if income by many online community hosts such as Mark Zuckerberg whose site, Facebook, made him a billionaire at a very young age. Other employment opportunities have been generated from the creation of social sites and other online communities (Doheny-Farina, 1998). Barry Wellman, who, like Rheingold, also wrote widely on the subject of virtual communities, argued that social sites have expanded horizons across many areas of life among them the presentation of new forms of employment and opportunities to the same. On the other hand, virtual communities do have their shortcomings which, coincidentally, are the advantages of physical or geographical communities. Many of these shortcomings base on the anonymity that characterizes virtual communities due to their nature of being, as their name suggests, virtual. The first shortcoming of these communities is that it requires the members to be literate in the sense that they have to possess the ability to read and write for them to fully participate in these communities (Gauntlett, 2008). It therefore occurs that the members, when not fully literate on not only educational matters but technological issues also, would feel alienated as their participation would be discriminated against. This brings to mind another shortcoming of these virtual communities. While it has been argued that there is little discrimination based on one’s race, age, sexual orientation or disabilities, there still exists another form of discrimination. This thus negates the phrase that the community members are free from discrimination. There are also other forms of discrimination in these virtual communities since, due to the freedom of expression that is associated with them, members are most likely to express their stereotypical biases against one another. The fact also that there is a lot of freedom of expression eliminates any restraints that come about due to people’s personal opinion (Horsley & Gauntlett, 2004). Without the effort of the administrators, there is likely to be a war of words when these individuals realize that they are not free from the societal biases they know of. This contrasts with physical communities where, due to the fact that people interact on a one to one and face to face basis, the members are more sensitive to one another’s needs and thus more likely to avoid coming into confrontational cases. The fact also that physical communities have rewards and punishments have made the community members more disciplined and thus less prone to being engaged in conflicts. The mere fact that the community members interact on a virtual basis eliminates the benefits that come with geographical communities where the members can extend the relationships to include other areas of life that are not the sole aim of the group. While members of virtual communities like social sites can meet and enter serious relationships that may lead either to marriage or better business relations, there is the risk of meeting someone different from what the virtual community portrayed them to be (Howard & Jones, 2013). Given that people depend on the pictures posted by fellow community members to discern who they really are, there is the risk that someone can give the wrong information to other community members for the sake of acceptance. This, when compared to physical communities, is a shortcoming other virtual communities since people get to build trust and friendships in geographically based communities. The cases where members build relationships beyond that of the community’s goals are thus more valid in geographical communities than in virtual communities. The fact also that people can give the wrong information about themselves has also led to people being kidnapped or even killed by strangers since as it is, the members of virtual communities are still strangers to one another. The other shortcoming of virtual communities is that access to the amenities required to facilitate the smooth operation of this kind of communities could be a problem to some people. Items like computers and modems for internet access may be out of the reach of many people whose contribution could be important to these communities. The issue here is that the costs involved are above the reach of many people who would like to be part of these communities. Unlike geographical communities that mainly base on a given individual’s physical presence and their personal contributions to survive, virtual communities base only on the individual’s access to the items stated above and their personal contributions to survive (Jones, 2008). There is thus the shortcoming that, contrary to popular opinion, virtual communities are a hindrance to real communication given that people need other factors besides themselves to participate and contribute to the needs of these communities. There are people who could join virtual communities due to the mere fact that they do have the facilities needed and thus use the communities as ways of killing boredom and not contributing positively to the same. In conclusion, there are many benefits that come with virtual communities and, even though there are negative results that have come with them, the positive side of these communities far outweighs their shortcomings to a great extent (Mackay & O'Sullivan, 1999). They have pushed interaction to a new frontier where the world, as it is often said, has been reduced to a small village where interaction is a click of the computer away. Before the advent of virtual communities, methods of communication were relatively primitive and time wasting due to the fact that they took time and thus most often invalidated the purpose of the communication. References Doheny-Farina, S. (1998). The Wired neighborhood. New York: YALE University Press. Gauntlett, D. (2008). Media, gender and identity: an introduction. New York: Routledge. Horsley, R. & Gauntlett, D. (2004). Web.Studies. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Howard, L. & Jones, L. (2013). Blood Born. Chicago: Little, Brown Book Group. Jones, J. (2008). The Bay of Pigs. London: Oxford University Press. Mackay, H. & O'Sullivan, T. (1999). The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. New York: SAGE. Read More