GVPT333: Group Community
Kimberly Carter, Dave Dobin, Tim Hammond, Chris Rushing
Welcome
Welcome to the site of Group Community. To read our paper in HTML, choose a section from the left Table of Contents menu. Please note that the HTML version does not include the footnotes. To see proper documentation of our paper, please download the MS Word version. Thanks!
The "Community Without Borders" section below includes the original description of our project from the GVPT/BSOS 333 website for the Fall 2001 semester.
Community Without Borders
Where is the Web? In part, one could answer that question by addressing the physical components of the Internet - individual computers, servers, nodes, and cables all are parts of the Web, and enable communication over it. However, there is a distinct lack of "where-ness" to the Web, in the sense that it is very difficult to make certain types of geographic delineation of borders. A server for a website about Chinese political events, as observed and posted by Chinese citizens, may physically sit in a room in New Zealand, and be accessible worldwide. Such a server might fall under the laws of New Zealand - and yet China may want to have something to say about what its citizens are saying on the page hosted by this server. Closer to home, a person in New York City, one of the more liberal areas in America, may have a website about his personal sexual experiences. This website is accessible nationwide, including by those in much more conservative communities. Members of those communities may consider the site to be obscene, and file suit against it. Obscenity is often judged by the application of 'community standards' - but which community? Does the Web erase borders, and if so, how does this affect the type of community a user participates in? A user can leapfrog physical boundaries and create communities with people of common interest worldwide - but how then can laws of geographical communities be applied? A push for standardization of certain Internet law exists, but can this be done? Should it be done? What if all communities had to behave by the standards of the strictest among them - or the most liberal?