-I'd say the notion that an online community can be empowering/disempowering is down to the individual. For people who perhaps live far away from people, or suffer from an illness which prevents them from getting out and about, I can see why, to them. that online communities can be empowering.
I also think they can be disempowering, as people can become socially excluded, distancing themselved away from reality and real life swocial situations, and using the internet to be part of a community instead.
B) p. 177 Does the Net provide a ‘public sphere’ where citizens can engage with each other? If so, how, and are there any limitations?
-It can be seen that the intenet provides a "public sphere", where people can virtually communcate and share ideas, thoughts and opinions in one place. Although this might seem a good thing, theres alot of down sides, such as online stalking, abuse and identity fraud, and the prevention of this is pretty limited.
C) p. 181 To what extent are ‘dangerous materials’ prominent on the Internet (or ‘junk and jerks’ as Kollock put it)? What do their existence mean in terms of the ‘freedoms’ the Net allows? Is freedom always positive?
-Not everything on the internet is good, as mentioned in many of my recent blogs. Kollock uses the term "junk and jerks" which refers to people who purposely use the internet to cause trouble and a distraction. Their existence kind of shows that the internet is an open field, with room and space for anyone. I think this is quite evident that freedom isn't always positive, as theres always things we would rather not see.
D) p. 184-5 To what extent can ‘ordinary’ Net users become producers of culture, rather than people who ‘respond’ to culture supplied for them?
- I think this point can be linked to the idea of the internet as being an open field, an open architecture (recently discussed in previous blog), a place where just about anyone can build upon. We are supplied with this open canvas, chatrooms, social networking sites and forums, which as the basics we need to produce culture ourselves. The consumption of the internet is active, not passive. Rather than just respond to what is already out there, we have the chance to produce what we want, build on what we want.
Nice clear answers to chosen questions.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to expand upon answers -bringing in other sources which you publish links to. Fewer questions answered in more depth would be even better than what you're doing now. (That's not the same as answering 'at length' -i.e. saying pretty much the same thing as now -but in more words.)
With regard to B): Habermas's notion of the 'Public Sphere' is a pretty rareified one, with informed people discussing the wrongs and rights of important social/moral issues. Is this what you encounter online? or do "Junk & Jerks" swamp such erudite discussion?
As I mentioned in the lecture, we might need two terms 'produser' & 'produmer' to deal with the situation where contributor's creativity only reach the lowest common denominator of drivvle?