The notion that online community can be empowering/disempowering is an interesting one.
Firstly, before reading Lister and the arguments in it I wouldn’t have thought of discussions and communications online to be ‘empowering’ as how can you be empowered by something which potentially could not be real. However when Jay Allisons case was referred to my views became different. He wrote about his daughters illness and surgery online and as he said ‘found fellowship and comfort in this unlikely medium’ (in Rheingold 1995:62) therefore controlling the forum and gaining support, maybe empowerment which he wouldn’t have received without online as he perhaps couldn’t express his views in the real world. However you might question to whether you can gain ‘real’ empowerment from this as you don’t know who the person is responding, who you are ‘really’ telling your stories to, but does it matter? In this situation was any response (‘real’ or not) good enough to satisfy his needs of not feeling alone?
Jones describes online communication as to ‘namely connect us rather then atomize us, put us in the controls of the ‘vehicle’ and yet detach us from the rest of the world’ (1994:10). If this statement is ‘true’ and we are put in control of the vehicle then is this not empowering as well? To be on control of what you are saying, getting your views straight across being able to say what you like, with no interruption. Furthermore it suggests that through this we are also not detaching ourselves form the rest of the world, also empowering. However it might be questioned that by gaining empowerment and spending time online, are you not sacrificing some real life communication for this? It all depends on the individual and how they use online communications.
If the internet is seen as empowering can it also be disempowering? I believe so. When you join a ‘community’ and express your views and sayings then you are opening yourself up to any response. As you are not there in person to stop anything ‘nasty’ being said or change the situation, you actually have to wait and see what the other users have written. So you could say that negative response and ‘abuse’ online could be disempowering, as you have ‘put yourself out there’ and not gained anything positive. However, is this not the same for real life?
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i like your point about whether you can gain any real empowerment from people who you don't know. For all you know the person you are talking to could be putting on a 'persona' and pretending to understand the situation, when really they have no clue. This persona and the copying of a stereotype like it says in Lister could cause offence. In my opinion, online communties don't mirror the communities of real life, but are a development of them. If you live down a street you are automatically in a type of community, whereas on the internet you choose to be part of one like Facebook. When you choose to be part of one, like you say, could cause problems with people's motives!
ReplyDeleteI do see how online communities can be a development of offline ones, as perhaps relationships develop more with the help of online networks and sites however i am not sure whether we need them? As if they are not anything alone and just a development than if they didn't exist could the development take place else where offline??
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