Since my first post, I have made a couple more posts on my discussion boards. As I spend more time on the boards, I am learning what works and what doesn't work in term of topics that posters talk about. I realized that when I post a blurb about some new information in the news or blogs that no one else has seen or commented on yet, the responses I receive are much greater than if I just summarize "last night's episode."
This week we have been talking about Virtual Communities. And yes, even though this is my practicum topic, I hadn't really given it much thought whether I thought discussion forums constituted an online "community."
I would like to argue that there are definitely aspects that fit the definitions given in Watson's article on the Phish.net fan community. Watson says that community consists of "shared relationships" rather than just shared space, which applies to my discussion board (Television Without Pity or TWoP) because members have a habit of posting and responding to those they are familiar with. Postman argues that you cannot be a member of a community unless you meet others within the community, and there are still aspects of TWoP that apply to this (which I will touch on tomorrow).
Here are a few discussion questions for you to consider:
Do you consider online discussion forums to be a form of “community”?
Does anyone participate in online discussion forums? What topics? What are your experiences?
Do online communities change your perceptions of reality? Meaning, do users get caught up in the “virtual” world and become out of teach with reality?
“Communities in the offline world serve as models of human behavior in large-group situations.” (Watson, 125) Do you agree?
Would you ever want to meet someone you communicate with online in the “real world”?
So after your presentation I was intrigued at how people talked about some of the shows I enjoy watching and whether that correlated to what you found. I love watching Food Network and my favorite chef is Paula Deen so I looked up a fandom site and it was funny how it correlated to your findings. I saw that lots of people posted comments just about random stuff but the ones that got responses/comments from others were the ones that had "juicy" topics like Paula Deen getting robbed by her nanny. It was interesting to see how people talk about her and her show too. I don't watch it that religiously so I probably won't join, but reading what people are saying is pretty interesting!
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