Do Online Communities Promote Social Polarization - Assignment Example

Online Communities and Social Polarization When the internet was introduced, every person thought of the internet as a platform for enhancing global coordination. The internet in the sense perceived the world as a global village to indicate that everything and everyone get closer to each other enhancing to exchange ideas, and everything others share. Eventually, the internet use ended up creating a community that is recognized an online community comprising of both the old and the young generations (Taiwo, 2010). These online communities have by far changed their social behavior towards a common trend that the Internet users tend to follow. The idea of group polarization is attributed to mean how group’s decision-making reflects more of an inclination towards the group members as opposed to what an individual would decide. The decisions are at situations very extreme that even lead individuals towards greater risks or towards more considerable caution where initial tendencies tend to be cautious. The phenomenon is also associated with the changing a group attitude in situations where individual’s initial reaction increases upon engaging in group discussions from their respective groups. “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” a scientific fiction work portrays how a group enhances polarization within its members through the introduction of ideas that remain relevant to a few in the inner circle while consequently affecting the decisions and ideas of other group members to incline towards the group’s perception. The paper, therefore, examines whether online communities promote social polarization through cross-examining how group polarization arises as portrayed in the novel, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. The author presents the moon or the lunar community as a community under the rule of the earth that is tending to push for a revolution against the earth. The ideas within the novel remain not only attractive, but also surprising to the audience in various active approaches. The moon population leaves as a group, with distinct and agreed systems of living separate from that of their colonialists from the earth. The community exhibits a sharp division in all a lot of aspects of life while compared to their counterparts on the earth. For instance, among the principal characters is Wyoming, an incredibly strong female character who stands at the helm of the revolutionary ideas and an important driver of the goal of revolution. Consequently, Luna inhabitants welcome individuals with ethnic diversity with various individuals having an earthly origin (Heinlein, 1966). The presence of people with Latin American, as well as Russian backgrounds, is a significant testament to the society’s acceptance of ethnic diversity. The lunar society also has a differing life setting than that of their rulers as women are portrayed to possess more power while compared to their male counterparts as a result of their lower numbers within the society. The numbers empower the women to realize a situation by what their choice is always regarded superior. The community also encompasses polyandry as well as polyandrous relationships in a positive manner. Consequently, the ideas presented by Mike, computer sentient do not only show fun, but also presents a thought provoking concept. Mike, the computer guru, is at one point portrayed as a child who eventually achieves maturity and in doing such, describes facets that may render his human-conspirators problematic upon reaching adult age. Group polarization is evidenced in every aspect of the book from the society’s way of life to their aim of starting a revolution against the rule of the Erath. Firstly, the revolution is engineered by a science computer with computer knowledge limited to only a few and yet the society follows the idea and engages in a revolution. The political ideologies throughout the life within the Moon’s society stem from individual characters. The population is made to believe in their possibility of winning against the Earth forces with some calculations that they less understand with Mike calculating figures to indicate their winning ratio as 7:1 (Heinlein, 1966). From the fact that the revolution is built on a false statement that and the society fully accept, it is evident that members that belong to a certain group develop a group decision making idea as opposed to the individual rational decision-making perspective. The progressive forms of ethnicity, gender as well as marriage al fall under group decision-making and consequently leading to polarization of the society’s way of life. Polyamory as well as line marriages presentation portrays how the society has shaped a life that is so different from what is normal, and everyone within the society feels right about the approach. It is quite essential to consider that the wives that engage in young marriages do it at a minority age of as low as fourteen years. For example, one of Manuel’s wives remained as a daughter until she made an option to become a wife. The term opting refers to a situation where a person consents to an idea or decision-making. It is, however, irrational for a fourteen-year-old to make consent as she is still a minor, but considering the way of life within the Lunar community, it is a normal way of life and an accepted practice (Heinlein, 1966). The issue does not end with the fourteen-year-old making consent, the main female character‘s age was only fifteen during a time when she married two twin brothers who consequently were at the same age with her. In a description towards the death of a death if a lady, it is claimed by the husband that the little girl’s lovely, breast were hit with an exclusive bullet signifying that the wife was far from mature owing to the expression that she is portrayed as little. It is important also to note that the murders within the novel only occur for women and in particular girls while the same fails to happen with boys. Consequently, the Lunar society is portrayed as a society where female possess real power and decision making but in real sense their power is eventually relegated to the household sphere with sex the primary bargaining power that they possess. For Wyoming, a character that begins as a central revolutionary, eventually joins Manual’s line marriage and consequently gets relegated behind the scenes of the surge for revolution. When she engages in farming, she maker the male co-workers get distracted, eventually leaving agriculture to work in a beauty shop (Heinlein, 1966). The society’s setting portrays men with obsession to women, always making their thinking revolve around women much attributing to the reason behind their few numbers. For example, despite Wyoh height of 1.80cm, the male characters throughout the novel refer to her either as a little lady or a little girl. The issue is consistently troubling while taking into account that the issue of underage marriage is portrayed throughout the society. At one incident, a tourist pawns a girl aged fourteen years upon his new arrival at the Lunar Society. When she screams, some boys come to rescue her who captures the tourists and is subjected to trial. Another significant aspect of society polarization is evidenced during the trial where the tourist is fined for committing an act of rape with the reason behind the judgment attributing that the tourist was unaware of the society’s custom and thus considered to have made an honest mistake. To the tourist surprise, he is made aware that he just became unlucky of the incidence because, in other situational setup, the girl might have agreed to his demands mostly with a pay in hand (Heinlein, 1966). On questioning whether such an act would not amount to statutory rape, he is made to realize that; “No such a thing, women in her age are married and ought to be.” The assurance is clarified further in a statement that says Stu is not rape in the Luna community. The argument is that men would object such a situation and if the tourist was in any means involved in rape the men would not have cared in finding a judge and all the men around who heard the scream ought to have scrambled to help the fourteen-year-old girl. It is from the comments here the audience understands the perceived ways of living among the Lunar community while they attribute a fourteen-year-old girl as such a big girl and attributing the probability of being a virgin as negligible. The natural laws dictate the importance of women in Luna society considering their scarcity as with their population indicating half of that of men (Heinlein, 1966). That scarcity makes the men respect women as a result of fear of being driven crazy by the scarcity portraying the importance of women as their sexual favors for men. The men within the society mostly as a result of their lonely nature always immediately respond to rescue a woman whenever a man touches her without her consent. The word lonely signifies an aspect beyond respect, but one that imply a matter of usefulness to the male gender. The community of Lunar has thus been polarized to enhance power to women not as a result of considering right or wrong, but arising from the loneliness in men that eventually renders women useful to the men. Consequently, women have the sole power to choose their sexual partners, as well as their husbands and upon the beginning of the revolution, they are not allowed to join the army as they lack the power to fight with actual guns (Heinlein, 1966). The portrayal of the society of Lunar as a perfect society characterized by group polarization making them behave in a different manner and attain attributes that possess significant differences from those of other people from the earth. Their cohesiveness and shared characteristics eventually lead them to win the revolution. Like in the story with the Luna community, online communities promote polarization of social aspects in various perspectives. A significant part of facilitating and creating online communities relates to blogs that comprises of online individual journals that encompass reflections, as well as comments with the writer also providing hyperlinks (Taiwo, 2010). There also exists organizational blogs with blogospheres being acting as community blogs that create a platform for online communities that enhances people to reach and interact with each other. However, online communities have led to social and ethical controversies mostly arising from the bloggers intention of posting breaking news to the online communities that relate to political scandals and eventually influencing public opinion. Other ethical issues may arise in response to posts that touches mostly on political aspects where individuals may hold differing views. Despite the ethical matters that arise with online communities, the online communities enhance social polarization trough presenting individuals with decisive as well as narrow topics. These critical and close issues mostly lead to polarizing people’s prejudices as well as attitudes that in return enhance increment in division as well as a social unit (Taiwo, 2010). Social polarization results from the tendency of individuals getting attracted to other people who share common attributes and getting exposure to opinions that increase their prejudices. As a result owing to these two tenets, social polarization will occur as a result of the information shared within the online communities as individuals will result in following ideas presented in their groups. Through creation of a group that shares commonly or in most scenarios standard views, online communities make individuals deviate from socially held beliefs outside the online community and join the social views held by the online community. As Robert Heinlein portrays in his novel through an exploration of the lunar community, polarization exhibits between individuals in a group. The decision making of individuals is made to follow the groups’ decision-making and in the process limiting an individual’s thinking capability leaving the result of a decision inclined to that of the group. The Lunar society is polarized as a result of circumstances and situations affecting them together with commonly held perceptions while social polarization within online communities arises due to the aspect of sharing common perceptions. References Heinlein, R. (1966). The moon is a harsh mistress. New York: Putnam. Taiwo, O. (2010). Handbook of research on discourse behavior and digital communication language structures and social interaction. Hershey, Pa.: IGI Global (701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, Pennsylvania, 17033, USA). Read More