Online Communities

An online community is a group of people who mainly communicate online, whether by email or social networking sites. Unlike real communities, online communities are less interactive and understanding of the other people within the community can never be as indepth as from actually meeting someone however, people can form communities with people they could not normally, for example they can be people from every continent in one community which, whithout the internet would be virtually impossible. Due to the fact of not being able to see of hear eachover people have come up with 'numerous abbreaviations (LOL, BTW, etc.) and emoticons (:-)(= smile) developed as specialised language to communicate in conditions of bandwich scarcity' (Lister et al). This demonstrates that people have to expain whether they are laughing and also facial expressions which gives the impression that it would be hard to understand people with just text and people can be easily misunderstood online. I can understand social communities using the internet as an aid to help them communicate quicker but I think an online community itself with no interaction in real life, misunderstandings and easy loss of contact is pointless and will not last as long as real communities and groups of people.

Money Saving Expert Forum

The Money Saving Expert website is a site where Martin Lewis, A journalist, who helps the public save money on almost everything. This website is highly helpful to anyone trying to cut down on bills or save money in any way. In the Forums people can get a chance to ask him questions to which he will reply and also discuss with other people any way they themselves have saved money on things. People also tend to discuss there probems or shortcomings pleading for help from Martin Lewis which tells us that people have laid their trust in him and believe that he can help them escape debt. The topic of debt is one of the highest discuss topics of the forum with over a million posts. People are very helpful to one another on the site and there is little conflict between users. There is a large variety of users as there are many topics about different things. In posts about saving on mortgages, mainly home owners will view the post whereas lots of other people would comment on saving on holidays. Although there are no moderators in the forum, there are signs telling people that if they spot something offensive to email them and it will be removed.

Web Forums

Web Forums are online site where people from all around the world can discuss certain issues and opinions. Here people can express themselves with no chance of reprocussions as it would be extremely hard to track someone down by there internet identity alone. Although there are moderators who can ban certain users from forums for there behaviour, there is nothing stopping them from being able to simple create another account and continue. Due to this, Forums can somwtimes get out of hand as people discriminate against each other, This implies that people are more real over the internet than in real life as in real life there are rules and regulation people must abide by but on the internet they can get away with saying how they truly feel about things.

'YouTube' - The Role of the Users

YouTube is a website where anyone can post videos of whatever they like to the world (within reason) and get responses. Just in the name of the website we can see that it is all about personalisation, its not His or HerTube but YOUTube, this enforces the fact that anyone can post videos in relation to their interests wherther being humour, sport, music etc. The interactive nature of YouTube 'draw upon the popular discourse of neo-liberalism which treats the user as, above all, a consumer' (Lister et al). Neo-Liberalism's aim is to give the consumer all different kinds of choice from the market, this suggests that rather than being a passive user, the people who use YouTube are more involved and can post or comment on any topic they find fit and also in different ways such as, aswell as text comments YouTube also allows the users to comment and respond with videos of their own which they can link to others. The users of YouTube contribute substantially to the website which demonstartes that without the users the site would not exist.

Interactivity - The Internet

Interactivity is a defining term for new media and distinguishes it from older forms of media. Where as other forms of media such as gaming has some interactivity as they control the game, the internet has brought whole new levels. Whereas instead of just controlling certain characters in a game, people can share their views and anything else they want with litterally the world and get feedback. Not only does the internet have its own interactivity but it also enhances that of other mediums such as sky television (which allows viewers to shop online) and also gaming (online multiplayer gaming) by making them able to access the internet. This suggests that the internet and its resources are growing rapidly and soon everything will be available to be controlled online.