Some reflections on community

Draft in progress….

Looking over what some students have written about their communities, I see that we tend to see different groupings as communities:

Ivan writes about his work as a community. He works with many different kinds of people, but all focused on one goal–publishing a magazine. As he puts it: this community “gives me an opportunity to talk and communicate with these different people. Each of them has their own opinion that I have to consider. It’s like move back and force and talk to people in order to create a one single magazine page.“

Kairzhan has discussed several levels of community, best friends, neighbors, study mates, and so on. He even mentions online community. Even within a group of friends, he sees “sub-communities”:

“(I)n communitie of my Best friends I have a lot of Sub-communities. I have a Sub-communitie of friends who I do know from school, they are the Best ))) I have a Sub-communitie of friends from KIMEP, they are the minority. Also I have a communitie of friends from KBTU, a lot of friends. And I have a small Sub-communitie of friends from my yard. Sometimes I do connect two or more Sub-communities, but they are still prefer to be independent. I connect them only on football match, or some anniversary.”
Alua writes about family, friends, and KIMEP community. Gulnara (like me) is part of the KIMEP Times community. It makes me curious about how we might see each as similar or different.

Required Reading for Friday 5 October

For Friday’s class, please read two short articles from Nieman Reports about online community and journalism. Be sure to visit the “related web links” in each story:

• Community Building on the Web: Implications for Journalism, by Craig Newmark
• The Challenge of Community Building, by Gary Kebbel

Nieman Reports is Harvard University’s quarterly journal about issues in journalism. In their Winter 2006 issue, Goodbye Gutenberg (from which the assigned readings come), they look at challenges and opportunities facing journalism in the new information technology era. You may wish to browse this issue, or other issues.

Discussing Community Within a Community

 

Today in class we will continue our discussion of community. Begin by visiting some other students’ sites (you can use the Links page to get there or, if you have subscribed to individual course sites using Bloglines, use your account there to check) and seeing what they have written about community. Then, at your own site, post an entry considering what you have learned reading their entries. (Be sure to post a link to the entries you discuss so the site gets “pinged.”) Some things you might consider (you might think of others):

• What do communities have in common, or how are they different?
• How formal or informal are they?
• How do we as individuals relate to our community(ies)?
• Are communities of equal importance?
• How do online and offline communities compare?

Or just respond to what the person wrote…