Online Communities Essay - 1061 Words

Communities are all about groups of individuals who share something in common. This makes going on the internet seem like an odd way to find more communities, form new ones, or strengthen pre-existing ones. The internet however is full of communities. Communities can be based upon religion, location, ethnicity, an interest, or a personal matter. The internet itself is â€Å"a global distributed data communications network† (Kirmayer, Raikhel, Rahimi, 2013, p. 166). This is what makes the internet so full of communities because communication is the key to putting multiple individuals with commonalities into communication, which is the basis of any community. Online communities differ from communities that exists off the web in a couple of†¦show more content†¦This distinction of authority aids in creating a hierarchy within a community. With online communities, every member is often able to contribute equally, allowing their voice to be heard. This gives the impress ion that every individual is an authority figure on a subject due to their ability to be equally heard. (Cellary, 2008, p. 107) For example to post a video about cats on Youtube, it is equally as easy for one person as it is the next to post a video. They simply must own a camera, have a Youtube account, be willing to record something about cats, and post it on Youtube (How to upload videos, n.d.). A third and huge difference between the two types of community is that online communities offer up the chance to be anonymous. Online one can identify with the use of almost any name or image. The name doesn’t have to be a real one, and there’s not really any way for one to prove the image is truly theirs or of themselves (Cellary, 2008, p. 107). However, this ability for anonymity within an online community doesn’t necessarily mean privacy. The study Internet social network communities: Risk taking, trust, and privacy concerns by Fogel and Nehmad (2008) talks about how much university students are willing to share on social media. Although the study does strictly look at one set of university students, it gives an example of how much individuals are willing to share personal information such as pictures of oneself, ones’ email address, instant messenger address,Show MoreRelated Online Community Essay1489 Words   |  6 PagesOnline Community After searching through various online communities, I finally found one that looked very interesting and informative to me, fitness.com. I chose an online community in which I would not only gain helpful information and advice, but I could also communicate with people who are interested in the same topic as I am. I knew right away that it was a community rather than just a typical webpage that someone had made. 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More energy is dedicated to the virtualRead MoreThe Pros and Cons of Three Types of Online Communities- Chat Rooms, Social Network Sites, and Online Classrooms1455 Words   |  6 PagesAn online community is a network of people who come together and communicate online, usually because of a common interest or goal. There are many different types of online communities. Some examples of online communities are: email distribution lists, message boards and newsgroups, instant message (IM) services, chat rooms, blogging sites, soci al networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and online classrooms/school groups. I intend to discuss three of these types of online communities –Read MoreSex Offenders Against Children are an Epidemic Overrunning the Online Communities556 Words   |  2 Pagesdecades ago. According to a report made by the U.S. Department of Justice; â€Å"one in five children (10 to 17 years old) receives unwanted sexual solicitations online† (Knetzger Muraski, 2008). One of this online sex-crime against children is known as child enticement. The Florida statute 847.0135 states that an individual is involved in online child enticement when â€Å"[†¦] utilizes a computer on-line service, Internet service, or [†¦] to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, or attempt to [†¦] a child or anotherRead MoreOnline Communities.1879 Words   |  8 PagesOnline Communities. To start off my essay I would like to stress on the fact that an online community is not created online communities evolve and flourish. Most of the well built online communities take time and effort to establish them. In this essay I will be covering topics like how people interact in an online community, also will be looking at how to facilitate a successful online discussion and how to evaluate the success or failure of an online community. With the dawn of the new