www.facebook.com
What is the focus of this community
Facebook is an social online network that has been designed to link friends and family worldwide. It is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.
What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute?
Facebook allows you to design your own profile page, with personal information,and upload your own photos. Facebook is very interactive. You can also be tagged in photos on others pages, join fan clubs and groups, add videos and engage in games and quizes.
You can talk to your friends live through facebook chat. This allows quick messaging and communication with your facebook friends. You can control who you are friends by adding, deleting and blocking.
Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?
Facebookers choose to be involved in this online community for social interaction and to gain a sense of identity and belonging. They feel they can communicate who they truely are as an individual and express their opinions and everyday thoughts freely. They form a sense of belonging through joining groups and fanpages, and make friends with people who have similar beliefs, religious or cultural characteristics as them.
Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).
One Page has been designed at working to change and empower how
the media looks at people with Intellectual Disabilities.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=app_2344061033&ref=profile&id=573043597#!/group.php?gid=63516216741
Considering material presented during the course and make comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability.
There has been much critism of facebook in relation to the privacy of their users, child safety, the use of advertising scripts, data mining, and the inability to terminate accounts without first manually deleting all the content. As users put their personal information and photos on facebook this could put them in danger of identity thief. Facebookers may fake who they really are, and in doing so, showcase false identity to others.There are also ethical issues with groups which are promoting anorexia, denying the holocaust and disrespecting people with disabilities etc. People who make these pages do not have any accountability and are free to make these without punishment. The company however, does have the power to take these pages off the website and others can report pages which hold offensive or pornographic material etc.
Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on the benefits this community holds over traditional notions of community e.g. communities reliant on geographic proximity
Facebook can compliment peoples lives by allowing them to keep in touch with family and friends that they would otherwise not be able to contact e.g. overseas or in geographically isolated places. As the connections are instant the information they would provide would be up to date, and the service is free. Information shared over facebook could foster understanding and unity between people, and therefore build up their relationships.
Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.
As facebook is an online community it does not have the same personal relevance and reality as traditional communities. People can have a delusional reliance of facebook for all their social interaction, and this is not healthy. Traditional communities involve real life, personal contact with people giving them a chance to interact on a deeper level, and communicate more fully through use of facial expression and tone of voice etc, whereas facebook can only communicate a message of what a person says.Communication through online communicties such as facebook can often be misinterperated or understood, leading to relationship problems.
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