Week 7!

Since Wednesday, Mette and myself have done the "student survey" at LCC. We asked students outside of university about what they thought a "Virtual Community" was . Most of the students seemed to be very confused by the word "virtual" and were much more responsive when we changed it to "Online Communities". As soon as we mentioned "Online Communitites", students asked: "Oh, ok, do you mean MySpace or Facebook?". It was interesting to see that students associated "online communities" only to these social networking websites. Most of them had an account but not all of them used it. We are in a University in which communication, networking and exhibition of your work is very important in order to find a pathway in the media industry. Because of this, I was really surprised that not everyone was keen to use these websites. Personally I have Facebook and I find MySpace too complicated. I think MySpace is more about listening to music/watching videos/finding out about vnues or concerts and maybe talking to people you have never met, whereas Facebook seems to me more private... On Facebook, I have created a Media and Cultural studies group for our class which permits me to send messages to the members regarding issues about the course (as I am the Course representative of the class). The problem is that not everyone in the class is on Facebook, therefore I have to email people as well... but I still get quicker responses from my Facebook messages then from emails. People seem to be checking their Facebook profiles more often then emails!
After all these issues, it is difficult to come to a general agreement around the use of social networking sites...!



Since the meeting, we have been communicating with members of the group via emails and have been progressing in our work without having to meet each other outside of classes. With Khristina, we emailed our work and received prompt responses from Mette and Leda. As soon as changes were made, the documents were e-mailed to each of us. Everyone seemed to be really stressed out regarding the project but progressively it was coming into existence. In my opinion, the aim of our project is now clearly defined with specific study cases.
Having been editing the documents, I now think it is important not to add information but to "harmonize" our already written work. On monday, we are going to put all our information on our group wiki and make it as interactive and interesting as we can. Because it is an online project, we have the chance to add different media such as pictures, links or videos. We have clearly defined sections with bullet points and are trying to avoid having just a big written paragraph (not very attractive to read).
It was difficult not to write too much, cut down on theorists quotes, make the project more personal and not to simplify the different theories. At the beginning of the project, we asked ourselves a number of questions (in the introduction of the project and then in the different sections) that we were surprised to find answers to most of them.


TO ADD TO OUR WIKI
Dangers of Facebook on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMWz3G_gPhU



How online community websites such as MySpace or Facebook are used by theifs to hack in for example bank accounts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYz6Q_q2UQA&feature=related



Have a read again:

http://webcommunityforum.com/




REFLECTION ON BLOGGING
There are only two weeks left and I am surprised how my attitude towards blogging has changed. I remember being very scared to write my personal reflections regarding the project/class discussions/questions because I felt too "exposed" as anyone could read it. progressively I started writing more and more as it helped me to keep track of the work I was doing. I also received feedback from Nigel :-)


Next week - monday hopefully- we are going to finalize our project and ask Nigel for quick feedback if it is possible. The written work is now ready- we have to work on the presentation now and link all our work together.