The Srinivasan reading argues that community can no longer be solely thought of in geographical terms.
This ties in with the content of the lecture and reaffirms the diasporic society described in the Jenkins reading. It outlines how some traditional social spaces such as cafes, public squares etc no longer fulfill the same social roles as they once did as meeting places due to the increasing amount of time being spent developing ties in online communities. I don’t think this necessarily means are large change from social norms, but rather it might indicate a rationalization of social norms where people prefer to perform some of societies roles online now. This has perhaps happened before and thus is not new, before the telephone much interpersonal communication was done face to face, and then changed to over the phone with little negative effect on society other than bringing dispersed communities closer together.
In this reading Srinivasan quote Putnam to support the argument social disconnection from traditional social affirmations. I think these traditional affirmation have been rationalized and simplified online, as mentioned above, allowing for greater access to groups from different social categories, religions and political views. The argument in favour of disconnection seems to be based around a seemingly lessoned involvement in the US political systems however the involvement in the Obama campaign and the political activism it seems to be promoting especially in the Middle East seems to discount this to me. The purported losses in social capital presented could also be a result of the homogeneous ideals being broadcast to the masses leading to rebellion against these as youth culture strives for their own generational identity.
New media can be used as a catalyst for new interpretations, view points and alternative paradigms by different social categories and groups although this is obviously currently restricted by the current copyright laws.
But by creating these works producers can preserve particular cultural traits and reconnect people to them, and introduce them to others from outside a particular culture. Allowing other cultures to discover and understand these cultures so that its own world view will be broadened in a 2-way process on cultural exchange. This process I think would have been near impossible in the mass broadcast model of old media where content creation and distribution was in the hands of corporate media producers – in today’s model grassroots media can be produced and distributed more easily due to the removal of old media gate keeping and low barriers to entry. Meaning that grassroots media exhibits community media which has been created under locally specific cultural controls. The example presented in the reading show how new technologies can be used to achieve community focused cultural, political, educational and social objectives.
Media is a locus of the public sphere in modern culture:
· Where cultural identity is shaped
· The development of the self can be investigated (post-modernism)
· The audience is connected by technological (digital) mediation
These ideas of community need to be thought of not only around geographic bounds as cultures are now blending around the online ethnoscapes (described in this week’s lecture) which create a Diaspora of connections free of any geographical bounds thus creating online communities with which users can still attach their cultural identities.
Those in a diasporic community are usually deemed to be migrants or expats who originate from another homeland but migrated to a new host country and maintain social and political ties through online communities. Networked new media means that migration is no longer representative of a social disconnection from ones homeland culture and strengthens ones cultural identification in their new homeland. Thus a culture is no longer tied via the space you are in.
Across both diasporic and indigenous cultures the new networked nature of online communities enables strong identity formation, communication, publication, distribution – all free of the restraint of time and space. These online tools allow participants to create a specific cultural niche or paradigm that represents them via a particular mode of discourse.
The “Tribal Peace” example given how when an online community is built to meet specific cultural needs, by the community itself, how this has the power to reconnect previously displace social ties and cultural artifacts (language, customs, art etc). A hub of shared cultural information can be built, and owned, by these community interests via the use of new media platforms and easily accessible technologies. This could be viewed as a part of Suroweikis “Wisdom of Crowds” as the community works together to form the best solution and is thus applicable on a global scale when looking at cultural communities being linked across the globe.
This ties in with the content of the lecture and reaffirms the diasporic society described in the Jenkins reading. It outlines how some traditional social spaces such as cafes, public squares etc no longer fulfill the same social roles as they once did as meeting places due to the increasing amount of time being spent developing ties in online communities. I don’t think this necessarily means are large change from social norms, but rather it might indicate a rationalization of social norms where people prefer to perform some of societies roles online now. This has perhaps happened before and thus is not new, before the telephone much interpersonal communication was done face to face, and then changed to over the phone with little negative effect on society other than bringing dispersed communities closer together.
In this reading Srinivasan quote Putnam to support the argument social disconnection from traditional social affirmations. I think these traditional affirmation have been rationalized and simplified online, as mentioned above, allowing for greater access to groups from different social categories, religions and political views. The argument in favour of disconnection seems to be based around a seemingly lessoned involvement in the US political systems however the involvement in the Obama campaign and the political activism it seems to be promoting especially in the Middle East seems to discount this to me. The purported losses in social capital presented could also be a result of the homogeneous ideals being broadcast to the masses leading to rebellion against these as youth culture strives for their own generational identity.
New media can be used as a catalyst for new interpretations, view points and alternative paradigms by different social categories and groups although this is obviously currently restricted by the current copyright laws.
But by creating these works producers can preserve particular cultural traits and reconnect people to them, and introduce them to others from outside a particular culture. Allowing other cultures to discover and understand these cultures so that its own world view will be broadened in a 2-way process on cultural exchange. This process I think would have been near impossible in the mass broadcast model of old media where content creation and distribution was in the hands of corporate media producers – in today’s model grassroots media can be produced and distributed more easily due to the removal of old media gate keeping and low barriers to entry. Meaning that grassroots media exhibits community media which has been created under locally specific cultural controls. The example presented in the reading show how new technologies can be used to achieve community focused cultural, political, educational and social objectives.
Media is a locus of the public sphere in modern culture:
· Where cultural identity is shaped
· The development of the self can be investigated (post-modernism)
· The audience is connected by technological (digital) mediation
These ideas of community need to be thought of not only around geographic bounds as cultures are now blending around the online ethnoscapes (described in this week’s lecture) which create a Diaspora of connections free of any geographical bounds thus creating online communities with which users can still attach their cultural identities.
Those in a diasporic community are usually deemed to be migrants or expats who originate from another homeland but migrated to a new host country and maintain social and political ties through online communities. Networked new media means that migration is no longer representative of a social disconnection from ones homeland culture and strengthens ones cultural identification in their new homeland. Thus a culture is no longer tied via the space you are in.
Across both diasporic and indigenous cultures the new networked nature of online communities enables strong identity formation, communication, publication, distribution – all free of the restraint of time and space. These online tools allow participants to create a specific cultural niche or paradigm that represents them via a particular mode of discourse.
The “Tribal Peace” example given how when an online community is built to meet specific cultural needs, by the community itself, how this has the power to reconnect previously displace social ties and cultural artifacts (language, customs, art etc). A hub of shared cultural information can be built, and owned, by these community interests via the use of new media platforms and easily accessible technologies. This could be viewed as a part of Suroweikis “Wisdom of Crowds” as the community works together to form the best solution and is thus applicable on a global scale when looking at cultural communities being linked across the globe.