Tutorial six

Tutorial Six: The internet and online communities

Either search online for a community which interest you or choose one of the provided online communities to investigate. Make sure your selected a community that comprises some form of online forum, discussion page or chat room. You may also wish to see if your community has a Wikipedia entry.

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating Bebo - www.bebo.com

What is the brief or focus of this community The focus of this web site is to stay connected with long lost friends and people you wouldn't usually keep in contact with.

What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute? Services provided: Sharing videos and photos for friends to view, adding face book and other types of communities. This site is very interactive, people can contribute by adding whatever they want to their own personal profiles whenever they want. They can also add all their friends to view what they add. Everyone can add their own blogs, groups, comments, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults. Plus loads of other stuff (internationally Retrieved 30th May 2008). There are also alot of new stuff being added that you can do all the time. People contribute by making there own page then writing to their friends or addeding new things.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking? Alot of people choose to contribute to this community(website) so they can keep in contact with family and friends. People can also meet new people. This can be great for people that arn't able to physically catch up with friends, it gives them another way to communicate with them. People on bebo are seeking social contact and the ability to keep in contact with others that could be half way around the world.

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt). "Chunky hey not much ae you? 3 days ago | Reply"

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. People can send abusive comments to other people. Some people can lie on it and pretend to be other people and there can be alot of problems with this as people can be in danger if they met up with them

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 Meeting someone face to face can be alot harder then meeting someone online! Also with this community you can talk to people all around the world and you dont have to be in the same graphic proximity. This makes it way easier to keep in touch with people that you dont usually talk to and all friends and family.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can. Talking to people on the internet through this community can be alot less personal then talking to them face to face. People may lie about their ages on the internet saying they are 20 when they are really 35, this therefore lacks security.People who dont have a computer cannot access this community so therefore they probbly do not know about it.