a) p. 174 What do you think of the notion that online community can be empowering/disempowering?
XXXXX
I feel that it can be both, because of the different risks and rewards available to the user. It can be empowering in the sense that people that may struggle to communicate with people in a real social situation can become a completely different person (gender, sex, race). This notion of being able to create another 'self' is very empowering! This different self or selves is then free to join online communities that fit that certain self, and there is the possibility of acceptance, which this person may not have in the 'real' world. However, this could back fire and this person could become even more alienated from both 'real' and 'virtual' communities which would be dis empowering. This therefore raises the question, Is virtual belonging good enough? Again this question poses a dilemma, because theorists can say that virtual belonging is only text based ideologies, in other words not real, but these perceptions could be different to the real social effects that these online communities can have for the user. For example, "At the level of emotional affect, there are material consequences for online communication" (Lister et al.). If the user has an emotional connection with the online community then does this not make it real? Therefore empowering.
XXXXX
I feel that it can be both, because of the different risks and rewards available to the user. It can be empowering in the sense that people that may struggle to communicate with people in a real social situation can become a completely different person (gender, sex, race). This notion of being able to create another 'self' is very empowering! This different self or selves is then free to join online communities that fit that certain self, and there is the possibility of acceptance, which this person may not have in the 'real' world. However, this could back fire and this person could become even more alienated from both 'real' and 'virtual' communities which would be dis empowering. This therefore raises the question, Is virtual belonging good enough? Again this question poses a dilemma, because theorists can say that virtual belonging is only text based ideologies, in other words not real, but these perceptions could be different to the real social effects that these online communities can have for the user. For example, "At the level of emotional affect, there are material consequences for online communication" (Lister et al.). If the user has an emotional connection with the online community then does this not make it real? Therefore empowering.
No comments:
Post a Comment