The nascent ‘online community’ that has been given the opportunity to exist from the emergence of the internet is the topic of this week’s column. Although many may define a community as being a cohesive gathering of distinct parts, often unified around one particular theme, goal or characteristic, the ‘internet’ has itself become a discreet entity that can be interacted with, in effect it is more than just the sum of its parts.
Before the internet, it was much more difficult to directly address a community without directly addressing specific people that make up that community. However, online social communication totally changed that idea.
As the image shows, there is a lot of communication that takes place from one person to ‘the
internet.’ That is a snapshot of the trending topics on Twitter recently, where the most used keywords and phrases being tweeted are compiled into a list and displayed, with sometimes hundreds of updates containing that specific keyword happening every minute. This same type of communication can be seen on YouTube where users address videos directly to the ‘YouTube Community.’ These people often share extremely intimate details of their lives, and do so in a way such that they have a) no idea who might watch them b) when people might watch them and c) in what context people are watching them.
Compare the type of things that people communicate on TV, or even radio versus the internet. TV communication is censored, is strictly controlled, the messages and images (even on reality shows) are incredibly carefully pieced together, only a very few people have control over who gets to transmit that information and it is only one-way. The internet is the total opposite. As long as we have net neutrality, there are no controls or filters on what people say. Online communication can be anonymous, cannot be controlled by anyone and there is an unprecendently low barrier to access for people who want to broadcast their ideas.
This revolution in communication creates an environment where people push in two seemingly opposite directions. One direction is some of the most unintelligent, sometimes outright hateful and barbaric content one might imagine. There are entire websites like lamebook.com that are dedicated to displaying the incredibly bizarre and sometimes outright insane or mean things people say on Facebook, in addition to the many websites which are based solely on propagating hateful content, often towards specific people or groups of people.
At the same time, there is a wealth of truly amazing community outreach, support and inspiration for people in various challenging life situations, charitable fundraising, government accountability and intelligent issues discussions that is literally mind-boggling as to their quantity and authenticity.
A great representation of this dichotomy is something I saw on Facebook the other day. This was an update where someone had become a fan at the same time of both a page titled “Slapping the Sh*t Out Of Stupid People” and a page titled “Victims of the Earth Quake Disaster In Haiti.”
Before the internet, it was much more difficult to directly address a community without directly addressing specific people that make up that community. However, online social communication totally changed that idea.
As the image shows, there is a lot of communication that takes place from one person to ‘the
Compare the type of things that people communicate on TV, or even radio versus the internet. TV communication is censored, is strictly controlled, the messages and images (even on reality shows) are incredibly carefully pieced together, only a very few people have control over who gets to transmit that information and it is only one-way. The internet is the total opposite. As long as we have net neutrality, there are no controls or filters on what people say. Online communication can be anonymous, cannot be controlled by anyone and there is an unprecendently low barrier to access for people who want to broadcast their ideas.
This revolution in communication creates an environment where people push in two seemingly opposite directions. One direction is some of the most unintelligent, sometimes outright hateful and barbaric content one might imagine. There are entire websites like lamebook.com that are dedicated to displaying the incredibly bizarre and sometimes outright insane or mean things people say on Facebook, in addition to the many websites which are based solely on propagating hateful content, often towards specific people or groups of people.
At the same time, there is a wealth of truly amazing community outreach, support and inspiration for people in various challenging life situations, charitable fundraising, government accountability and intelligent issues discussions that is literally mind-boggling as to their quantity and authenticity.
A great representation of this dichotomy is something I saw on Facebook the other day. This was an update where someone had become a fan at the same time of both a page titled “Slapping the Sh*t Out Of Stupid People” and a page titled “Victims of the Earth Quake Disaster In Haiti.”
Neither of those comments are at the total extreme, as some comedic value is is most definitely part of the first one, but the juxtaposition was too good not to mention and does represent two distinct ways people use social media.
I see the job of people in new media development such as myself, and anyone who might be reading this, to be brainstorming and promoting platforms that encourage the latter type of new communication - the kind that is supportive, caring, informative, personal and entirely authentic. People may be inherently dichotomous, and although there is no excuse to ever censor the ability for one to freely create content online, there is so much promise in pushing to develop ways to people to use their energy and ideas to contribute positively in civic life and to the lives of other people, and not just in their online community, but in that real-world community we all do still live in.
I see the job of people in new media development such as myself, and anyone who might be reading this, to be brainstorming and promoting platforms that encourage the latter type of new communication - the kind that is supportive, caring, informative, personal and entirely authentic. People may be inherently dichotomous, and although there is no excuse to ever censor the ability for one to freely create content online, there is so much promise in pushing to develop ways to people to use their energy and ideas to contribute positively in civic life and to the lives of other people, and not just in their online community, but in that real-world community we all do still live in.
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