Community Without Borders

Report

Farming and ranching communities have shown a steady decrease in population over the years. According to John Barlow, the people living in farms and ranches do not form homes or communities anymore.⁽¹⁾ On the other hand, online groups like the Deadheads, a virtual community that follows the Grateful Dead band around the country, form a community online. Virtual communities help connect isolated people. As more people move around the country and the globe in search of better jobs, it gets harder for them to stay connected. Online communities stay put and so can the hearts of the people moving.

However, online communities cannot replace real ones. Differences exist between information and experience. Virtual experiences cannot replace real experiences. Jaron Lanier supports this view: “information is alienated experience.”⁽²⁾ Some basic entities missing online are vocal and tonal cues and the sense of touch, smell, and taste. Also, community experiences online can be artificial. After all, the Internet was designed and built with the intention of using it in times of war and failure of all other forms of communication. The Internet was seen as a tool for increased production of works and ideas, but it has become a giant library with a commercial tilt.⁽³⁾

A significant threat to virtual communities is lack of diversity in members. This was one of the reasons for the failure of the intentional communities of the ‘60s and ‘70s.⁽⁴⁾ Most people on the Internet are of a specific background, age group, income, and education.

Just because online communities are virtual does not exclude their members from having feelings, obligations, and responsibilities. Barlow gives an example of an incident when no one but another Deadhead stopped to help the broken minibus of Deadheads on the road. Even though members of such a community might have feelings towards each other, they often lack communal understandings of a society. Because of the high value attached to individual interests, members hardly care for the interests of society as a whole. The new frontier for exploration is Cyberspace. The end of the road cannot be seen or predicted. We are heading that way whether we want to or not. After spending countless hours in virtuality, many people tend to appreciate reality more.⁽⁵⁾

The Internet can improve and support real communities. It can help build a civil society by making cities more hospitable to innovators and extending technology’s reach to the less well off. However, a long-lasting civic structure for a new space for public deliberation will not happen by accident.⁽⁶⁾ Cities have initiated Internet support organizations that attract dot-coms, start-ups, and high-tech companies to their districts. Most of these organizations benefit communities by attracting capital. Community activists, rather than City Hall, drive most of these organizations. The Internet can also reduce the need for time-consuming, face-to-face meetings.⁽⁷⁾ Whether an increase in social capital means a stronger civil society depends partly on how the Internet shapes public spaces in cities. Despite the decentralized potential of the Internet, cities will continue to exist and be a location for social and economic interaction since they have always been a source of innovation and creativity.

In contrast to Barlow’s view, William Galston argues about the possible effects of Cyberspace on community life. He leans towards traditional, real communities rather than virtual ones. According to his argument, “contemporary American society is structured by two principal cultural forces: the high value attached to individual choice, and the longing for community.”⁽⁸⁾ The problem with individual choice is that as it expands, the bonds of the community weaken. Galston refers to J. Snyder’s argument that virtual communities are not communities in any sense of the word.⁽⁹⁾ Thomas Bender defines community as a restricted social place, whether geographical or electronic.⁽¹⁰⁾ Among other necessities, relationships are face-to-face and ties connect members rather than individual gain. Galston mentions his own accounts of traditional community in a town in Portugal. The community was tranquil and in order, and the townspeople had deep connections with each other.

Real communities have some similarities with virtual ones. Four key features of a community, suggested by Thomas Bender, are limited membership, shared norms, affective ties, and a sense of mutual obligation. Real communities have limited membership; on the other hand, virtual communities do not. Electronic groups have a low barrier of entry and exit. Since easy exit diminishes the necessity to improve the group using “voice,” the effort to alter the character of existing organizations, low barriers emerge as a political problem.⁽¹¹⁾ Easy exit also tends to produce internally homogenous groups that may lack communication and understanding with other groups.

Bender’s second feature, shared norms, is evident in virtual communities. Internet groups have developed shared norms of their own.⁽¹²⁾ Despite the liberalism and anarchism associated with Internet users, social norms and morals develop online. For example, explicit language is not tolerated in some chat rooms and members might decide to drop violators from the room.

Affective ties are common in virtuality. However, visual and tonal cues cannot be expressed in chat rooms. One cannot tell whether the words and deeds are genuine and sincere or created and fake. Other oddities include personality bends and impulsive communication due to the absence of the cues.

The final feature of a community, mutual obligation, does not develop in online groups. According to Postman, “groups formed out of common interests need not develop obligations because by definition the interest of each individual is served by participating in the group.”⁽¹³⁾ It would be unfair to criticize online communities for not abiding by obligations. Since according to Nessim Watson, a strong sense of mutual obligation disappeared in real American communities too.⁽¹⁴⁾

It is too early to determine if affective ties online, for example, will become more like real ones with the addition of cameras that transmit images instantly in chat rooms. Whether online groups can survive and be successful without these virtues is yet to be seen. Therefore, virtual communities should not be taken as a comprehensive model for the future.

Civil society is moving online and, as a result, some concerns and trends are emerging. Organizations use Web sites to communicate, conduct business transactions, and advertise. Citizens use email, chat rooms, and bulletin boards; they buy and sell goods and services; they get their news from Web sites and read and post ideas, opinions, and beliefs. Inequality, weekend social bonds, diminished public deliberation, rampant consumerism, and the impact of eroding privacy on freedom of association threaten civic values.⁽¹⁵⁾

Inequality is a concern because people cannot access the Internet effectively without the means. They need to buy a computer, have a high-speed connection, and have the necessary skills to use these tools. People may find that civil society benefits from the opportunities the Internet provides, while the poor and less educated have no choice but to stick to traditional and local modes of association and communication.

The second concern is thin and weak social bonds, which form as a result of the superficial bonds that connect people whose main form of communication is the computer. Withholding information, adapting multiple personalities and identities, and easily breaking contacts do not help form strong and emotionally satisfying social bonds.⁽¹⁶⁾ Internet users have more real-world memberships and spend more time in club and organization activities compared to people without Internet access. In the long run though, Internet users are more likely to get lonely, depressed, and isolated, spend less time with family and friends, attend fewer social events, and devote less time to the newspaper.⁽¹⁷⁾

Furthermore, withholding information about oneself online makes it difficult to punish antisocial behavior that weakens social inhibitions and encourages offensive behavior. Withholding information can also encourage a race and gender-blind environment.⁽¹⁸⁾ Not withholding information can form deep and emphatic communities online, whose members share information and support each other because they choose their partners rather than simply accept local networks.

Another concern about social bonds is the distinction between “thick” and “thin” communities. Peter Levine summarizes Bruce Bimber’s explanation of a “thin” community stating that members have common beliefs, values, or ends.⁽¹⁹⁾ He argues, “I will quit as soon as I decide that the overall costs of participating outweigh the benefits.”⁽²⁰⁾ So if, for instance, a list serve is a “community,” it requires a conditional and limited type of mutual trust. On the other hand, in a “thick” community, such as religions, neighborhoods, and families, members appreciate the value of the group, its participants, and the goals reached by collective collaboration. Participants in role-playing games cannot form communities without a community presence in the real world, since “thick” communities without a real world presence rarely exist online.

Similar to Bender’s idea of limited membership online, Levine states that exit without cost is easy online.⁽²¹⁾ The right of exit with strong, disciplined associations in a healthy civil society usually has its costs and consequences. Disciplined organizations might be hard to get into and may offer paths to power and advancement. In today’s world, disciplined and powerful organizations are corporations that require skills or wealth. Furthermore, voluntary organizations have become weaker as a whole, leaving the working-class without a source of significant power. Likewise, Internet groups have little power in civil society because they cannot control the resources of members.⁽²²⁾

An opposing argument is that the Internet allows people to overcome collective-action problems since there is no need for authority or much money to achieve common goals.⁽²³⁾ Examples of such movements are the Zapatista’s of Mexico, the international network of neo-Nazis, and the anti-globalization movement. These movements used the Internet to organize and take action.

For example, a couple of hours after Japan’s worst nuclear accident, a group of Indian citizens concerned about a local nuclear reactor organized on the Web.⁽²⁴⁾ The group released warnings and reports to the local villages and the government about the possible health hazards and risks involved. Similar information sharing activists formed a virtual clearinghouse in Malaysia connecting other anti-nuclear groups.⁽²⁵⁾ The Net provides such groups with cheap and efficient ways of communication, organization, and action. More groups want to get online because they can access related sites and experiences. Internet activism still works within limits. More often than not, we hear of success stories rather than failed ones.

Public deliberation, another concern, is an expectation of civil society along with strong bonds and trust. Citizens develop opinions by observing and participating in discussions and forums. By doing so, people have to defend their views against those of different beliefs, and the foolish and selfish ideas tend to drop.⁽²⁶⁾ Public deliberation is a means of communicating between the wants of the people and the elected politicians.

As communications online gets easier and cheaper, there develops a proliferation of separate communities or conversations that have no contact with each other, termed as “balkanization.”⁽²⁷⁾ When people with different ideas deliberate, they tend to compromise and reach consensus. In contrast, when people with similar ideologies deliberate, they tend to move toward their own ideologies’ extreme. Such undesirable extremes can be avoided if bridge-building media survive offline or attract mass crowds online. Because “exit” prevails over “voice” on the Internet, it is more likely that public deliberation will decrease.⁽²⁸⁾

Levine also expresses concern about consumerism. Consumer choice has increased substantially with the Internet. People can find goods and services or religious communities, support groups, and political lobbies easier than before. Consumerism, however, does not encourage production and creativity. In addition, consumer choice does not necessarily guarantee freedom. What a consumer buys, affected by advertisements, without an awareness of alternatives is more an evidence of slavery than autonomy. Connecting our appliances and communication devices to the Internet through wireless connections in our homes is foreseeable in the near future. Advertisers would be able to target customers with specific products and services, while consumers would find it difficult to satisfy all the unfulfilled desires, which is a problem on its own.⁽²⁹⁾

Consumer choice is incompatible with alternative values and customs because less known groups are not as heavily advertised. For instance, Islam is not a choice but submission to the will of God and a way of life for observant Muslims. The Internet makes Islam look like a choice and Americans use the Internet to treat religion as they do consumer goods. Therefore, Islamic sites will have to compete for attention to guide believers to the right beliefs and schools of thought.⁽³⁰⁾

The last concern, privacy, is limited on the Internet. The Internet allows people to conceal their identity, race, gender, and age, while private information is monitored, recorded, and used by government agencies and corporations. Since disclosing information is a personal choice and information and knowledge about people is power and money, citizens lose freedom and become weaker compared to the government and large organizations.⁽³¹⁾

Both Galston and Levine see the concept of a “voluntary community” as a possible solution to these emerging trends and concerns. However, there may be other solutions, just as there may be other problems with Internet communities. Even though the arguments mentioned may suggest more negative than positive trends, the Internet has value and will continue to bring people together online.

-Yasin Ozer

Footnotes