I thought Rushkoff made some valid comments in his article Electronic Community: From birth to backlash. My example is this site, blogger.com, where we were ordered to create personal blogs for this class. I have never had a weblog before this class and I never really had planned on it. Now I feel that I am more technologically advanced and I feel that I have learned so much about the web. My main argument (more like agreement) is about sites like blogger that allow the users to create their own content and has "forced an interconnected community." I feel close to my group memebers, even though I may not know them in person.
Rushkoff ends his article with a very useful statement: "Blogger.com provides a set of publishing tools that allows even a novice to create a weblog, automatically add content to a web site or organize links, commentary and open discussions. In the short time Blogger has been available, it has fostered an interconnected community of tens of thousands of users. These people don't simply surf the Web. They are now empowered to create it" (pg. 31). This is a good piece of information. I agree with Rushkoff that in a world with Blogger, the users control the content and therefore information. Now, if I needed to know some quick information and I didn't want to surf the web, I could create a question on my weblog and communicate with another blogger. Not only could I get an answer or opinion back from someone, but I could post a comment or opinion of my own to get instant feedback. This web-based community allows its users to communicate via the web in its own little community. Like we discussed in class, its almost like bloggers are connected in a group like the USENET groups. We don't all have to be the same age or race or sex. The internet doesn't care about that. You don't have to have a certain amount of money or class to open a weblog and communicate with fellow Americans (I don't want to stress Americans- I'm sure this is widely used in other countries). As far as I know, there isn't really any strict regulation of what types of posts and comments you're allowed to make. Free speech I guess. I just think its amazing that we can create content based on our interests and share it with people all over the world. Content is then shared for free- as long as you have a membership. This web-based tool is a lot like youtube and other online chat rooms where information is sent via the web and with instant results.
This seems like an example of the internet attacking our culture but not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, to be honest I think its cool that we can post our own weblogs and add any content we want. It gives you a sense of control that you don't always have in a personal setting (i.e. class, work, etc.). By creating these web-based tools of communication you are pulling away from personal interaction. Therefore, we're becoming a virtual culture. Who knows, in 5 years this class could potentially be an online course!
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I most definitely agree with you. When we first were assigned to do the blogging assignment I was a little peeved that we had to create a blog. I have a facebook which isn't so much blog but thats as far as I go with internet communities. I've had some bad experiences with myspace and things of that nature in the past and which facebook I felt its a little different (maybe not). Anyways, I think another example would be Xanga which is very similar to this blogger. I had one freshman year of high school and it was bad! You always find out things you don't want to know lol! But it forced you to be interconnected to people by subscribing to their blogs and things of that nature. I'm not going to lie. I'm not a big fan of the blogging. It's not difficult but its just I don't like being in so many different online communities. I feel almost unsafe as I put more and more of myself on the internet and that is why I am very careful about what I put on facebook. But anyways, I definitely agree with you and you did a great job on your blog!
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