Tutorial Six: The Internet and online communities

Provide the web address and the name of the community you are investigating
www.facebook.com

What is the brief or focus of this community
Facebook is a free-access social networking website, a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.

What services are provided? How interactive is this site? How can people contribute?
Facebook users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. It is a highly interactive site, as people contribute by writing wall posts, emailing, commenting onto their friends profiles as well as their own, inviting people to events, joining groups and clubs, adding and tagging photos, and adding applications.

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment on why people choose to contribute to this community. What is it they are seeking?
Social interaction, Keep in touch with friends and family, Networking and Chat

Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt).
Below are two excerpts from my facebook profile. The first is about a comment from my friend. I use facebook as an easy way to keep in touch with friends. Facebook also has many applications which users can add to their profiles and post so others can read them. Popular applications are quizzes. You can choose from a huge range of topics – I recently completed the quiz “What decade are you?”

Facebook Wall Post
Emma: bro ! my fb keeps closing so i cant chat to anyone!
we should defs catch up tho, hope u r alll good! how bout sunday 4 u?

Facebook Quiz Application
Ellie completed the quiz "Which decade are you? With the result 1940s Glamorous Revolutionary.
You are quite the glamorous revolutionary! You have a sense of pride in everything that you take on, whether it's filling in to do a man's job during wartime or raise your daughters to step up to the challenge of helping to establish women's rights, you take things head on! You are a hard worker and are always looking out for others. Your style centers around clean lines and timeless designs. Women in the 40s had the same sense of pride in their bodies and dressed in a way that accentuated their figures! You are not one to stand by and let things happen to you, you go after what you want and you are respected and admired for it! .

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.
All users of facebook should be aware of potential issues that can arise in this community. For example, privacy issues relating to photo and video uploads, confidentiality relating to friend requests and cyber bullying when using the online chat application.

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
Benefits of facebook is that as an online community it:
-Can provide information quickly
-Can provide connections over great distances instantly
-Has the ability to connect with people of similar interest/needs/concerns

Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can.
The traditional face to face interaction when it comes to socialising is what an online networking community such as facebook lacks.