Thursday 12 May 2011

Tutorial Six

Here are three online communities for my personal occupations that were introduced in tutorial five.


Te Awamutu football club    Te Awamutu football culb facebook page    New Zealand Wakeboarding website


The Te Awamutu football club site is about keeping players and members informed about what is going on within the club, teams, and events. It also has photo albums of recent games that have been played by all teams.


The Te Awamutu fooball club facebook page is a social site where players and members can keep in touch outside of games and trainings. They can make postings and links with interesting sites or clips that might be interesting or of value to other people.


The New Zealand wakeboarding website allows people to become members with WNZ (wakeboarding new zealand) as well as providing information about events, sponsers, retail specials, coaching the list goes on.


Why do people contribute to online communities?

First i think i should define what an online community is. Online communities also known as 'Virtual communities' as defined by Ridings & Gefen (2004) "have been characterized as people with shared interests or goals for whom electronic communication is a primary form of interaction" this is where people gather to share interests, knowledge and their lives. 

What people are looking for is social contact with people from different areas of their community or even parts of the world. They want to be able to give and recieve support form others to give them a sense of belonging (Online conference on networks and communities, 2010).

As for the communities i have chosen above, people want to contibute to these because they have a passion or interest for the activities that these sites are based around. They can not only contribute to these sites but they can get responses from them too eliciting a two way form of interaction.

Ethical issues


References:

Ridings, C. M., & Gefen, D. (2004, November). Motivations to Join a Group . In Virtual Community    Attraction:. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue1/ridings_gefen.html#s2

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007, August 23). The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168. Retrieved April 5, 2011, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x/full

As for the Te Awamutu website and Facebook page there are ethical issues that are present here. For example informed consent and this may or may not have been obtained when photos are being taken at a game and put on either of these sites. Though I don’t think this is a major issue within this club it is still a very valid concern to think about.

What are the benifits?
There are several benefits of online communities as opposed to the traditional geographical communities in other words physically meeting up with people. These are having access at any time of any day. Being able to contribute from the comfort of your own home. And the ability to stay in contact with friends and family “when life changes move you away from each other” (Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2007, pg. 1165).


No comments:

Post a Comment