One week ago, in my Genre Theory class with Carol Berkenkotter, we were talking about the blog as genre, and the notion of community came up. Yesterday, Christine Boese came to the University of Minnesota to do a talk, and later that day she visited the Rhetoric Department for lunch. In our conversation, community in blogging came up yet again. Here are my questions: What counts as community? Yeah, I know you have to define community, but I'm wondering, do you think blogging produces communities? Chris Boese suggested that the more surface-level "linklove" is not really community. I agreed, but said that it's part of what makes blogging communal, especially if it's done for a long period of time, and if you leave comments on people's posts, email, etc., then you do have community, I think. I feel like I'm in community with several bloggers, including Ms. Lauren, Mike, Becky, Cindy, Michelle, Tracy, Dr. B., and others.
We also discussed community vs. clique. Chris said some argue that blogging might create cliques more so than community, but then we agreed that the top 100 blogs on Daypop, Technorati, and Blogstreet are more cliquish, but that besides those rankings, there are opportunities for genuine community in blogging. Anyway, I'm rambling, but here's my overall question: If your gut reaction is to say that there is community-building in blogging (as mine is), how do you persuade someone who is skeptical of blogging's potential for community?
Revisting Rheingold
Aren't we really revisting Howard Rheingold's "The Virtual Community"?
"People in virtual communities use words on screens to exchange pleasantries and argue, engage in intellectual discourse, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play games, flirt, create a little high art and a lot if idle talk. People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind. You can't kiss anybody and nobody can punch you in the nose, but a lot can happen within those boundaries. To the millions who have been drawn into it, the richness and vitality of computer-linked cultures is attractive, even addictive.
There is no such thing as a single, monolithic, online subculture; it's more like an ecosystem of subcultures, some frivolous, others serious. The cutting edge of scientific discourse is migrating to virtual communities, where you can read the electronic pre-preprinted reports of molecular biologists and cognitive scientists. At the same time, activists and educational reformers are using the same medium as a political tool. You can use virtual communities to find a date, sell a lawnmower, publish a novel, conduct a meeting."
I went a-blogging a year ago to air topics of interest and find folks to discuss them -- topics I couldn't discuss in my "real" world. I found all that and a lot more; I found everything that Rheingold describes above.
Sure, there are cliques; they're like the popular students in high school everyone wants to get to know and be known by, but not really attainable as true friends. There are those who do not respect community or community-building, but they can also be found in chat rooms and BBS, what have you.
As I blogger I've made friends that I can count on in a pinch, folks who motivate me to achieve, people who'll give me a chance to do fun new things that I'd never get a crack at elsewhere (like co-editing an on-line e-zine with other community members). All this, and folks I was looking for in the first place, who'll discuss arcane stuff and esoteric stuff like consciousness studies and "interhemispheric brain activity and networked mediation".