A community that I am active in both online and off is with my family. In Haythornwaite’s paper on social networks, she reports Tönnies idea of a community, or Gemeinschaft, as “a collective based on strong interpersonal ties, face-to-face interaction, a shared focus and common purpose, [and] language and identity” (2007). This definition perfectly describes the close-knit family community that I am part of, which includes my parents, my brother, and my aunts’ families. Haythornwaite examines social communities and used Social Network Analysis to determine what is exchanged, communicated, and shared within a community. She also talks about different kinds of social capital, including networking, common ground, and reciprocity.
Our community has a strong network, and shares a high degree of common ground. Even though our individual nuclear families live relatively close to one another and get together face-to-face often, there has been an active CMC element for years. We have an email list where we share anything from interesting news stories, funny videos, vacation countdowns, and general updates. Most of us have Apple computers and use the built in video chat, and publish photos to our .mac accounts. We even use this awesome paint program that is integrated with the web to easily share our created images; I get regular doodles in my inbox from my younger cousins. The ties between all of us “actors,” as Haythornwaite would call us are strong since all of the “adults” have known each other for over twenty years and have shared both common goals and set-backs, and all of us children have been a part of this community for our entire lives.
Reciprocity is also plays a large role in our community and strengthens the relationship between us. Reciprocity can be defined in this context as when actors give help without return expectation, back and forth. There have been many times that a family member would come across an interesting engineering article, or see something advertised, and pass the information along to me. We are also on the lookout for interesting programs for one another; just the other day I forwarded a link to my mother and aunts (who love cooking), for an innovative program where you can store and share your recipes.
Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) found that communities that utilize both FtF and CMC aspects can form stronger bonds more effectively than communities that rely on one only. In my family community I believe this can not be truer. Before everyone got into computers and found useful internet resources, our community was not as close as I perceive it to be today. We share many more “inside” jokes, common stories, and learn more about each other from using both forms of communication than we did previously, due to online and offline synergies. I don’t feel like I am missing out on much even though I am now seeing much less of my family face to face than ever before, which I attribute to our community’s usage of CMC.
(The one program I mentioned in here is still in public beta www.plasq.com/skitch. It is an awesome program; check it out if you have a mac! I still have three invites left to give away if anyone wants them!)
3 comments:
Caslynn,
I was very excited to see that you chose your family as your community because this is something that I think many people overlook. I really like your blog because I could really relate to it myself. For many, our families are the closest networks that we have, full of strong ties. I also think that a family can be the ideal example of a community. Strong ties are your immediate family that you live with and see everyday. Weak ties can be cousins who live far away or aunts and uncles that you don't see very often. Then, of course, there are the in-between ties and actors who you may see once a week or once a month. Like you said, there is a lot of social capital within family network. Usually, families have a lot of commonalities due to such close proximity for so many years – they share a lot of memories and experiences together and often develop many of the same interests (cooking, going to sports games, favorite TV shows, etc). Also, as you said, families demonstrate a lot of reciprocity. My family is similar to yours in that we are always emailing each other interesting articles, updates on our lives, and staying constantly connected via CMC. Great job picking out an excellent example of one of the strongest communities one can be a member of!
-Emily
Great post! You did a really good job of connecting theories with examples. Like Emily said, it was nice to see that you chose your family for this assignment. It’s a perfect example! This especially rings true for college students who are far from home. Being all the way across country from my family is hard but with the availability of the internet, we are able to maintain and even strengthen our community. Students going off to college, or anyone who is away from friends or family, often times tend to lose a little bit of that community. CMC definitely helps to increase the relations that are sometimes lost. Weak ties with distant family or friends can be enhanced and improved into strong ones by interacting online through using various websites and email. The common ground principle you all share keeps you connected as a family and the internet facilitates this growth. Again, great job!
Hi Carolyn,
Like the other two posters have mentioned, you did a really good job relating your topic to the theories involved. I think using your family is a really good example, though it did not really occur to me to do so! I'm a little concerned that family networks might behave slightly differently than other social networks due to the deferent level of resources that actors have involved with family relationships than every other type of type of relationship. But is certainly can be one of the strongest communities that someone can experience! I think it's really cool that you all stay in touch through webcams- I just realized how nice it would be to see my family after my sister sent me some digital videos of my family can cat last week! Thanks for the great post. Keep up the good work!
-Brian
Post a Comment