Boyd and Ellison ( 2007) defined social network sites as “  web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system,(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”(2). Where as, Beer (2008) article was a response to Boyd and Ellison’s essay. Beer argued that to Boyd and Ellison definition of social network is too broad and it be more classified. Additionally, Beer suggested that Boyd and Ellison’s definition should be used as a base for categorizing different types of websites. Therefore, Beer suggested that “ in place of a very general vision of these sites as social network sites, why not use a term like Web 2.0 to describe the general shift and then fit categories, such as wiki’s , folksonomies, mashups and social networking sites within it”(5)

I strongly agree with Boyd and Ellison’s definition of the networking sites, and think that it is clear and valuable. However, unlike what Beer thinks of the networking definition, I do not think that Boyd and Ellison’s definition may cause misleading. Thu, I think that Beer’s suggestion of categorizing the networking definition to make it clearer and more precise is a valuable suggestion as well.

People may use social network to maintain old relationships (classmates, coworkers, friends, family members…so on), or look for new relationships within the social network system such as Facbook and Myspace. Therefore, in social network you would have unique connections with others and can not fake your identity because everyone knows you. However, people use online communities because they have a common interest that held them together such as a hobby, profession, national origin, religion, or similar lifestyle and so on. Online communities’ users may have pre-established interrelationships, but not necessarily, so they are mostly do not know anything about each others at all in which would make it easier for users to use a fake identity and not have a unique relationships because the connections within this system will overlaps. Also when conflict arises it would be harder to solve the problem within the system in online communities than the social network sites.

The rapid growth of computer mediated communication, especially those happening on social sites, has attracted the attention of scholars. This attention has made it important to define these types of communications.  Some of the earliest attempts to define these types of on-line communications were put forward by Boyd and Ellison (2007) and Beer (2008). Based on these articles, it is clear that the authors of each article have a different picture of how to define social network(ing) sites.  Boyd and Ellison shy away from the use of “networking sites” and define social network sites (SNSs) as “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”.  Beer believes that the use of SNSs is rather broad and the more specific term “social networking sites” would facilitate the work of researchers.  Beer defines a social network(ing) site as “something particular, a set of applications where, to a certain extent, networking is the main preoccupation”.

I think both definitions have value. While I agree with Boyd and Ellison that networking is not the primary use of SNSs in every case, I also believe that Beer is right to want a precise definition of SNS in order to eliminate confusion.

Social networks are similar to online communities in that they can connect people on both the local and national level based on similar interests, or in some cases connect with strangers. However, SNSs differ from online communities in the sense that members of online communities develop a closer connection that spills over into off-line relationships.  In SNSs it is possible to be connected within the site and not have an emotional connection.

After reading Baym and watching the video online, I was convinced that a online community is just a group of people who share a common interests that like to engage with discussions online. If you have some sort of social media outage, then in my opinion you belong to an online communtiy whether it be for fun or business related. Baym’s definition of an online community included five qualities that he felt were important to be considered and online community. They consist of: space, practice, shared resources, shared identities, and interpersonal relations (2010). Having a social life online kind of makes a person more involved with what is going on in todays world because online communities always have some way to inform others of what is going on. I know that I am a part of an online community simply because I do like to get involved in discussion topics about television shows and other entertainment getaways. I also feel that the blogs that we post every week make each and every one that is enrolled in this course a part of an online community as well (LOL). Baym also wrote that if a person is a part of an online communtiy and uses the internet he/she is more sociable, engages in social activities, more educated, and will more than likel engage in politics off the record (2010). The two main ways that Baym describes being in an online communtiy fits into our social lives is by civic engagement and political enagegment (2010). Everything that we do on the internet that usually pertains to responding and engaging in conversations makes us a part of an online community. Online community communication is a great resource to use when we wnat to feel noticed and in order to voice our opinions.

In a group project for another class I experienced a social conflict when dealing with face to face communication and using social networks. Half of the group preferred face to face meetings while the other half wanted to do the majority of the project through emails, twitter, text, Facebook etc.  We argued a lot because people who were meeting face to face were getting all the work done while the random texts or emails from other members left them fairly clueless about what we had planned for our project and the presentation. I was on the face to face side of the group and I felt that the other half of the group was not interested in putting their time and effort into our project because they always had excuses why they couldn’t meet and would send emails asking what we had to do. This type of conflict included a number of communication breakdowns as well as incompatible interests. It took forever to get text or email responses about questions we had. Also the differences of opinion on how to present and what was required created a lot of tension amongst us. This conflict was symmetrical because we were all students in a group for a class project.  No one person had the power to delegate responsibilities or punish anyone else for not contributing. The conflict was destructive in the end because it made it hard to trust those other people to do work, and for me, it created an image of them as lazy and unwilling to participate. I would never recommend them to people for a job, project, etc. It essentially split the group into two and broke friendships due to their unaccountability and lack of dedication to the group. Reardon’s strategies were used in this conflict. At first we tried to be versatile by being understanding and flexible to each other’s schedules. We also didn’t want to be too selfish but eventually became too giving when it came to doing the majority of the work with only half the group. We asked a lot of questions throughout the whole project about what were the goals, expectations and in the process we learned about other people’s attitudes and negotiating strategies. In the end we became accepting that others were not willing to put the time in for this project and no longer wanted to negotiate timed meetings or the workload, we just got the project completed for the grade and did not worry about it anymore. We could have tried to be more understanding of the style they chose to approach the project or we could have negotiated other ways to meet like through webcams that would have made the conflict less stressful but I think because everyone was so consumed with their own time schedules we all just wanted to get the project done.

Based on the readings and videos on online community, there was no specific definition for online community. Baym (2010) explained the definition of online community through the five qualities of : space, practice, shared resources, shared identities, and interpersonal relations . However, from my understanding of the readings I can describe it as a group of people who they have interest on something specific , such as TV show, and where each member of this group can attack more people, to finally form an entity that is just like the local community called online community. The members are not from a specific location, profession, or age, but they all share their feeling, thoughts, ideas, and support each other. After a long time of online interactions, they can meet in certain place face-to-face like any family reunion.

I think that the difference between a community and random group can be seen in political topics or discussions because people will always have different opinions. The random group is smaller in number, its members might already know each others offline, and have interest in specific religion, ethnic, politic topics or certain profession. Therefore, when a political conflict arises, they would have more solidity and can solve the problem easier or compromise the politics discussions to maintain peace. However, the opposite is true for the online community, where political discussions can create divided and problems that are difficult to solve.

People get involved in online communities for many reasons:

• They do not have the time to form face-to-face relationships because they work long hours
• They work in an office where they have plenty of spare time that might borer them.
• For emotional support, for example, if someone’s parent passed away and he or she lives in a place away from their family members or friends.
• If they feel ugly and have low self-esteem because of their face features or any kind of disability, they decide not to socialize fear of social criticism.
• If somebody is not sociable, but know that he or she can express their feelings better in writing, they definitely would rather to socialize online.

I am a member of the “Jerusalem’s Families” online community. My brother, who lives in Maryland, established this community last year so we can have friends who they or their parents were born in Jerusalem. It doesn’t matter how old are you, what is your religion, where you live now, what is your profession or level of education. We started last year with 12 members, today; we are more than 1950 members. We talk about different topics (politics, art, music…We posts paints, jokes, photos, poems blogs…etc) nothing specific. Thu, we feel like a family, support each other in everyway, and planning to do like a family reunion in Jerusalem very soon so we can meet face-to-face.

Baym (2010) explained two ways that online communities can fit into our social lives by civic and political engagement. Baym argued that people who use the internet and members of in online communities are more sociable, have more neighbors and friends, engage more in clubs and associations to collect charities to help their communities, more educated, and more likely to engage in politics offline.

An online community consists of a group of people who interact in a digital space around a shared interest or topic, whose interactions may deepen over time. The site might start out as a random group of people, but it quickly progresses into a social community. As mentioned in the IRL documentary, people started talking because of a common interest, but it became a gateway to establishing relationships. Baym commented on the deeper connection users grow: members of “online groups develop a strong sense of group membership” (72). The opportunity to share other interests with a wide variety of people creates a realm of possibilities for relationships. These are often possibilities that are not offered in the real world. These groups are connected in a way that “transcends local communities” (Baym, 97). People get involved because of a shared interest, and they become engrossed as they develop ties with each other and build authentic relationships (Rheingold).

“The Bronze” was the modeled after the name of a club, and it became a hangout of its own as an online community. The community was referenced as a “never-ending text-based version of a party” where you could actually relate to neighbors. You had more choice in forming you relationships – something the real world heavily limits.

When I was a Freshman in high school, I was a member of a LiveJournal community that revolved around the show Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Some of these members later created a separate Fan Website. The front page had screencaps, icons, graphics, and soundclips for the public, and there was a private message board community where members could chat on different threads. We all shared the interest in Conan, and commented on talking points in the show, skits and characters, and jokes. The message boards had many threads, and most of them unrelated to the show.  They provided a place for members to talk about a wide variety of topics. As we commented on each other’s posts in the community, we began to communicate and connect outside the sites. Some of us shared outside interests, such as music taste, life stories and struggles, political conversations and thoughts, poetry and photography, etc. I made a deeper connection to some of the members and we became friends. We ended up reading each others’ personal journals and chatting on AIM regularly. I even made one friend in Oregon with whom I regularly talked on the phone. The online community helped provide the support that I didn’t feel comfortable asking for in real life. It didn’t take away from my normal social activities, as I mostly posted late at night when I had no other social responsibilities. The community gave me the freedom to explore parts of myself, interests, concerns, and worries, in similar ways mentioned in the IRL documentary. I wouldn’t have the time to do this now, but it was very helpful at a young age to have a strong sense of community.

When Rheingold coined the term “virtual community” back in 1987, he said his emphasis was more on the ‘community’ part rather than the ‘virtual’ part of the term. To Rheingold, communities are a group of people that have some kind of connection or relationship to each other. Rheingold says that the typick ‘small town’ community where everyone knows your name is important and needs to be preserved. But, we need to keep in mind that is not the only kind of community out there. Rheingold mentions that you can even have communities in big cities and New York where people find a common ground and have connections with each other. When Rheingold talks about the ‘everyone knows your name’ community, I just thought of the TV show Cheers and the show’s theme song. The theme song is famous for its line “you wanna go where everybody knows your name and theyre all glad you came…” So, if you think about Cheers then you can really get a feel for what a community is in real life. An online community pretty much has the same concept. There are several groups you can join on Facebook and one of them I am a part of is the Obion County Resale, where you can list items that you want to sell. But, I’ve also seen this community used in other ways too. Here recently, there was a family whose house got burned down and someone had posted on the ReSale that the family was needing boys clothes and that if anyone wanted to help they could bring donations to the hotel where the family was staying. There were a lot of comments where people were sympathizing with the family and wanting to help them. I saw people coming together to help this family and I think esentially that is what an online community is all about.

What is an online community? Is it everyone who uses the internet? Or is it more defined to people belonging in specific online communities? I believe that an online community is a group of people that share a common interest and involve themselves, somehow in an online group that they enjoy. Therefore; a community is a group of people sharing a common interest. As Howard mentions, they are “real people who became part of my life.” This was his version of a close-knit community. A random group of people are placed together, for some reason, unknown. The complete opposite of a community would be a random group of people.

People become a part of online communities for many different reasons. Personally, I have never been a part of an online community but I have a sense of why people may join.

“But, there have been many instances in which there are, are people, for different reasons, they’re sick, or they’re, they’re in a scary part of town where they don’t want to leave they’re apartment at night.  Or maybe they’re older and they don’t get around that much.  Or like myself, and many others, I work at home, where am I going to get my relationships and I go, go to a bar or a coffee house or, or do I log online, so not everybody has that kind of old village, small town, everybody knows your name, physical community.”          -Howard Rheingold

Howard says it perfectly here. Some people may join online communities because they feel unsafe to leave their home at night, or they are older. They may join an online community to share similarities with other people they may not have found in the real world, or in the city that they live in. Online communities have slowly been becoming everyone’s separate identity. They do not, anymore, mesh very well with the rest of our social lives, unless it is to tell your friend about a Facebook or Twitter post you saw earlier. But at the end of the day, most people have their separate social lives, and separate online identity which lies in their online community.

At first glance, the term “online communities” seems to represent a self-evident concept. But, upon closer examination, it quickly becomes a multi-dimensional subject. There are a great deal of ways one might define “online community.” In fact, reduce your definition enough, and you might conclude that the entirety of the worldwide web is a community. Conversely, choosing an alternate definition might lead you to conclude that there are actually no real “communities” online. But, neither of these viewpoints are necessarily helpful in giving the idea thoughtful consideration. As Baym points out at the outset of Chapter 4, “…no one has ever been able to agree what exactly “community” means.” This shouldn’t surprise anyone with experience academia. However, at the end of the day, definitional squabbles aren’t always as important as experience. In the documentary IRL, which chronicles the experiences of diverse individuals with the online community based on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Bronze, one guy notes, “Once you got there, you didn’t stay because you wanted to talk about the show, I don’t think, you stayed for the sense of community.” It is this experience he speaks of, which echoes my own personal experience, that truly defines “online communities.” It’s that sense we have that we truly resonate with others we interact with on a consistent basis. Random groups of people we brush shoulders with virtually are easily forgotten, but a sense of camaraderie and belonging remains long after the community dissolves.

This week’s study of online communities took me back to our first couple of weeks of the class when we explored the fears that society has established around the mass adoption of the internet. Many said that people would leave their social circles and other personal communities and migrate online, spending hours alone in front of a monitor. In watching the documentary about “The Bronze”, I hope some fears were finally put to rest. For me, the documentary was clear evidence that online communities are not taking people away from their communities, but adding communities to their existing lives. Many of those interviewed for the documentary expressed that they were able to socialize with people through “The Bronze” who shared interests that they would not have otherwise encountered in their face to face social circles. In this case, it demonstrated that “The Bronze” added a social circle without removing them from any existing lives.

Howard Rheingold’s interviewing and reading was a bit uptopian. Howard seems to believe that we, as a mass people using the internet” are forming new communities that rival the strength of our identities as nation states. While I think we might be a solid 100 years away from that being truthful, we are reorganizing ourselves around internet communities in ways that we have in the past and currently organize ourselves (and subsequently identify ourselves) around religion, ethnic background, and nationality. Additionally, one thing Howard said in his interview stuck me as the most truthful statement from this week’s studies, “I don’t like to describe the real world as real, because online is real too.”

I haven’t experienced being part of an online community. However, but I imagine people join them most often when they are compelled by a special interest such as a book, movie or tv series or sports team. People may join them because they are unable to meet people in their existing social circles with the same interests or to simply enjoy being emerced in a “fan experience”. Many fandom websites today have lots of interactive games, and are rewarded with sneak peaks or exclusive merchandise offers. The incentives could be widely varied, but most people are probably seeking a social connection or some kind of escapism.