Narrative Media Orientation
Abstract:
A community shares beliefs, values, membership, similar interests, emotional connections with each other, and certain amount of influence towards one another. A citizen often refers to an individual belonging to a nation/state. Both community and citizen refers to a geographical location with a citizen often times encompasses a larger terrain. A citizen has rights to services from institutions belonging to the nation/state that aliens often are excluded from. However, the term digital community and a digital citizen are not bounded by a specific locale, but rather by interests and needs.
Development:
When I think of a digital community, I am a participant in interests that serves my needs without a degree of commitment. When I reflect on what a digital citizen entails, I think about the moral responsibility of being a member of the groups I am a participant in. The global village and the digital citizen remind me of a broader institution like the United Nations that crosses boundaries and oversees humanity’s moral obligation. Digital community does not automatically lead to digital citizenship. What is missing is not the organizational difference, but the power associated with it. How so?
“Citizenship is tied to community. It is an expression of our understanding of what our community expects of us and what we expect of it” (Ohler, p.36). The technological move from analog to digital affects us in ways we are beginning to understand. Clay Shirky’s positive view on cognitive surplus of knowledge, creation, and humanitarian efforts around the globe is a positive outcome of being a digital citizen of the world.
People are more than ever connected through online relationships for work (LinkedIn), for school (virtual classrooms), for social relationships (eHarmony and Facebook), for creativity (YouTube), and many other different kinds of associations. The power that arose from communities connected through digital communication had a positive outcome on the mobile advocacy in Africa. Rural farmers were able to regulate, control, monitor, and select buyers in selling their crops. This was a great example of digital communities paving the way for digital citizenship; where other farmers around the world would be able to emulate their success.
A major concern in the digital landscape for many of us is the concern over privacy, usage of information, and governmental regulations over the use of digital media. For example, companies like Facebook have access to personal information, connections, and the updated lives of the millions of its users. Early on in Facebook’s history, individuals were able to access everyone’s personal profile. The “digital eye” in its vastness of information reminded me of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Everybody was able to monitor the locations, mental life, and interests of the person they wanted to follow. The difference was Facebook’s ability to kick out its members that weren’t complying with their moral code. Whereas Bentham’s prison kept social delinquents in a confined institution because the delinquents broke moral law.
Conclusion:
Facebook’s digital community harnessed the ability to connect to family, friends, people of similar interests, and make new friends. Digital citizenship grew out of a need to rethink the limitations of companies, governments, and individual rights and responsibilities. Thus, digital citizenship should require individual virtuous behavior, balancing personal empowerment and community well-being, education, participation, ongoing debate, inclusiveness, media evolution, and tied to its community (Ohler, pp.33-35).
Sources:
Manobi Development Foundation. (2010). Mobile advocacy in africa. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://cdm15225.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15225coll5/id/2
Ohler, J. B. (2010). Digital community digital citizen. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
TedTalksDirector. (2010). Clay shirky: how cognitive surplus will change the world. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2013).Panopticon. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
A community shares beliefs, values, membership, similar interests, emotional connections with each other, and certain amount of influence towards one another. A citizen often refers to an individual belonging to a nation/state. Both community and citizen refers to a geographical location with a citizen often times encompasses a larger terrain. A citizen has rights to services from institutions belonging to the nation/state that aliens often are excluded from. However, the term digital community and a digital citizen are not bounded by a specific locale, but rather by interests and needs.
Development:
When I think of a digital community, I am a participant in interests that serves my needs without a degree of commitment. When I reflect on what a digital citizen entails, I think about the moral responsibility of being a member of the groups I am a participant in. The global village and the digital citizen remind me of a broader institution like the United Nations that crosses boundaries and oversees humanity’s moral obligation. Digital community does not automatically lead to digital citizenship. What is missing is not the organizational difference, but the power associated with it. How so?
“Citizenship is tied to community. It is an expression of our understanding of what our community expects of us and what we expect of it” (Ohler, p.36). The technological move from analog to digital affects us in ways we are beginning to understand. Clay Shirky’s positive view on cognitive surplus of knowledge, creation, and humanitarian efforts around the globe is a positive outcome of being a digital citizen of the world.
People are more than ever connected through online relationships for work (LinkedIn), for school (virtual classrooms), for social relationships (eHarmony and Facebook), for creativity (YouTube), and many other different kinds of associations. The power that arose from communities connected through digital communication had a positive outcome on the mobile advocacy in Africa. Rural farmers were able to regulate, control, monitor, and select buyers in selling their crops. This was a great example of digital communities paving the way for digital citizenship; where other farmers around the world would be able to emulate their success.
A major concern in the digital landscape for many of us is the concern over privacy, usage of information, and governmental regulations over the use of digital media. For example, companies like Facebook have access to personal information, connections, and the updated lives of the millions of its users. Early on in Facebook’s history, individuals were able to access everyone’s personal profile. The “digital eye” in its vastness of information reminded me of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. Everybody was able to monitor the locations, mental life, and interests of the person they wanted to follow. The difference was Facebook’s ability to kick out its members that weren’t complying with their moral code. Whereas Bentham’s prison kept social delinquents in a confined institution because the delinquents broke moral law.
Conclusion:
Facebook’s digital community harnessed the ability to connect to family, friends, people of similar interests, and make new friends. Digital citizenship grew out of a need to rethink the limitations of companies, governments, and individual rights and responsibilities. Thus, digital citizenship should require individual virtuous behavior, balancing personal empowerment and community well-being, education, participation, ongoing debate, inclusiveness, media evolution, and tied to its community (Ohler, pp.33-35).
Sources:
Manobi Development Foundation. (2010). Mobile advocacy in africa. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://cdm15225.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15225coll5/id/2
Ohler, J. B. (2010). Digital community digital citizen. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.
TedTalksDirector. (2010). Clay shirky: how cognitive surplus will change the world. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu7ZpWecIS8
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2013).Panopticon. Retrieved January 29, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon