Week 6 – review

A week which has left me less sure about what community means than I ever would have expected. It was good to return to Bell. I like his style of writing; it’s almost conversational which, to me, works well within the context. The piece gave a great overview of the shifting sands from which one must try to build an understanding. I was particularly taken with the notion of ‘bund’ and had a bit of fun trying to ally edcmooc to it. I’m not sure if this exercise helped cement my understanding of community, but I enjoyed curating the bits and pieces together.

I’m interested in how difference is played out within online ‘communities’ and the discussions around status in Kozinet’s paper reminded me of the signature phenomenon which I’d noted whilst lurking in forums. I’d always considered the signatures as quite boastful statements, but having a closer look this week I can see that many administrators request that people share information to make life for members easier. In addition, I can see that the information could help new visitors to distinguish between those who can help, and those who are perhaps not in the best position to. Chantelle made an interesting comment around the same phenomenon occurring on IVF sites which brings to mind the public/private blurring which we studied in IDEL.

A few similar strands came together coincidentally around the continued privilege of real life over online. My guilty secret is that I do like the aesthetic of the skeuomorphism which Apple apply to some of their apps and I do actually still like f2f but, interestingly for me, I find I don’t need either. I ponder, however, on the post whether or not there are people who would find it difficult to be comfortable without these small nods to real life.

Finally I had an interesting twist in my own personal learning this week. Whilst I was reading I was thinking about formulating responses in images, not words. This is completely unexpected, exciting and unnerving. I think my worry has always been that any visuals I create will always be unsophisticated – both technically and conceptually – given that I have never studied any visual subjects. However, I think this is the time to experiment. I’ve obviously got a long way to go (Petri Dish being a case in point – although I may eventually get round to tidying it up!).