New Media & Society Blog - y39

Our back to the future week really begins with a slice of Howard Rheingold’s virtual community. Rheingold’s piece is in many ways a clarion call touting the legitimacy of online interaction, and the 4 other articles join in by addressing the nuances of the relationship between online and offline interaction in one way or another. Unfortunately, these articles (and my own mind) share a common—though forgivable—failure: limited imagination. Basically, it’s impossible to fully predict the future—and that’s the task at hand here. Reading these articles today, they seem bereft of (relevant) detail. In the time that’s passed, so many unexpected and creative events have happened online and offline that the primitive explorations are truly quaint. That said, the questions that they raise often remain unanswered.
Reading Rheingold’s piece on the WELL with Turner’s much later exploration of the historical roots of the service raises some interesting questions. For both Rheingold and many of the early adopters of the Whole Earth Catalog, a kind of physical detachment drove their need for a social/community outlet: Rheingold telecommuted & the hippies had deliberately removed themselves from society. Is the main effect of the internet (in a Meyrowitz, macro medium-effect sense) the elimination of detachment unless isolation is specifically sought? Meanwhile, for people who have strong social networks in real life, what role does online socializing play? Broadly put, are there people who actively choose to spurn a fulfilling real life to pursue online community? Or, is online community always a fall-back, a supplement? Certainly, people discuss the benefits of controlling the presentation of self via email or benefiting from its asynchronous nature… Our intuitive response might be yes, but I suspect that there are situations and conditions that are more effectively addressed by online interactions.
In the Wellman & Gulia (assist: Hampton) piece, 7 categories of inquiry regarding online community are explored. In reading this piece, I felt that most of my specific questions had been noted—but even 6-7 years after its publication I wonder if the context the article is situated in is too limited. Is it even possible to fully extricate and separate online vs. offline need fulfillment, strength of ties, etc. etc. etc. any more? This point is addressed discretely sporadically and at the end of the article, but I think that if the other specific points were to be addressed today, it would be more appropriate to have this in mind throughout.
I guess, in this same vein, the medium-theory approach advocated by Meyrowitz is appropriate and attractive here. To me, tracking down the exact strength of a particular online-tie overlooks the elephant in the room: that humans suddenly have generated an entirely new, additional realm of contact and communication. It’s not that new media supplant the existing modes of communication—though I reserve letter-writing for very particular occasions nowadays—its that the potential fabric of my daily interactions is enriched. It’s easier for me to talk, write, and grimace at my friends, family, and enemies. There’s a bunch of artful history in Meyrowitz's article—and very little that’s actually about new media except a claim that “everyone else, foreigner or family member, seems somewhat familiar – and somewhat strange.” To begin, I sort of disagree that my family seems more strange today than it would’ve 30 years ago because of technology. I also am very skeptical of his claim that people globally are more similar today than before. I see the superficial facts—similar media habits, jobs, clothing—but am not sure that people around the world weren’t actually fairly similar in other periods of history as well. They just might not have been aware of it…While I support the idea of taking a macro view of a medium, I feel very uncomfortable with seems like a swift leap to broad claims about the nature of civilization by Meyrowitz. Perhaps a book-length work by him would allay these qualms...