This tutorial looked at online communities, how they work, ethical considerations and a bit of a comparison between online communities and traditional communities. I decided to focus on online footballing communities.
Introduce a chosen topic of interest drawn from your fieldwork experience, an OT practice area or a personal occupation. Search online for at least 3 communities that relate to this topic and address the following questions and tasks. Chosen topics should be discussed first with the lecturer.
Provide the web addresses and a hyper link for the three online communities you have chosen |
Provide a brief description of each community
Yellow Fever is the fan site of the Wellington Phoenix. Naturally most of the talk revolves around football, the phoenix in particular, but there are plenty of other areas related to football people can talk about – regional football, chants for games, planning, all sorts really. Manutd.com has a fan zone which is very similar to the phoenix in that it is based around football particularly things related to Manchester united. It is a considerably larger forum than Yellow Fever due to Manchester United’s global reach. Football forums is a place where you can go to talk about football as well, it is also quite a large community so the focus tends to be on larger international teams and leagues rather that local stuff. |
What services are provided on each site?
Yellow Fever – the site is very interactive, people can go into any forum and comment and is set up in a clear way grouping similar forums so you can find what you want easily. People contribute by typing their opinions, posting pictures, links to other sites, etc. Manutd.com – also a very interactive website, pictures are very common, and often banter and taking the mickey out of other teams happens a lot. People contribute altered pictures to convey what they think or to humorously put down other teams. Football forums is again very interactive and similar to the other two forums, people contribute pictures and their opinions, and the site is set up well to allow easy navigation. |
Consider material presented in the online package.
Yellow Fever – people contribute to this website for a number of reasons, to show support for the phoenix, to voice their opinions on things football related, and to know what others think. I think sometimes they are seeking approval or sometimes they are seeking to be the person who is a bit controversial. This could be supporting opposing teams or just seeing something differently from the majority. There is always the opportunity for conversation to be reciprocal but just depends on whether other people are interested in an opinion conveyed. Manutd.com – people have very strong views on this website and topics range from match discussions, to potential player purchases, to banner ideas, and much more. In some cases there is a common goal (banner ideas) and people seek approval from this. I think people also want to convey their footballing knowledge. Again an interesting opinion will be responded to but it is not always the case. Football forums are similar to Manutd.com in terms of size and intensity of opinions, but since people are coming from different footballing backgrounds (supporting different teams) there is more disagreement. People want others to know that they are right and vice versa. Again people want to convey their opinions and show their knowledge. Conversations again are reciprocal but not always. |
Cut and paste an example of the type of topics being discussed (you may have to provide a context to your excerpt). The champions league final is coming up and someone has proposed the ideal starting 11 players if they could be joined. It is typical to have this hypothetical discussion, and people are often willing to contribute and defend their opinion. I was talking with my mates about this at the weekend, and it gives me a real cause for optimism looking towards the big game at Wembely. Basically we all pretty much agreed on this team. GK. Van Der Saar RB. Alves CB. Ferdinand CB. Vidic LB. Evra CM. Xavi CM. Iniesta RWF. Messi LWF. Pedro SS. Rooney CF. Hernandez I know this is not necesarily the most balanced XI, but it was picked on a mixture of the season's form.. and their current abilities. We have 6 from United, and 5 from Barca.. I personally would have picked Park to play LW but my mates who are mostly neutrals convinced me Pedro is much more of a goal threat and has had his best season ever at Barca. My main reason for Optimism is that when weighing up the squads there is no doubting the quality Barca have.. Xavi and Iniesta are among the best in the business and Messi is quite possibly THE best in the business at the moment.. but would you swap Rio and Vida for any CB pairing in the world? would you swap Rooney and Hernandez for any strike pairing? In the 3 of the 4 key area's of the pitch (Goalkeeper, Defence, Attack) I belive we are stronger than Barca.. though anybody has to admit in midfield we are probaly quite a bit behind them (Talking Reds, 2011) Note: the above section was typed rather than a screenshot as it was not loading properly onto this post. Lots of people have responded to this and proposed their own teams, and this is the norm for this forum. |
Considering material presented during the course and comment on the potential ethical issues that may arise in this community e.g. lack of identity and accountability. There definitely is a lack of accountability in these forums and other similar things like facebook and twitter. People can do and say things without the consequences of real life and can hide behind a computer screen. While not everybody has bad intentions when using these types of websites, it is naive to think that every will adhere to the rules set in place. The threat of having your account shut down is not really a threat to someone who doesn’t care about it. It certainly doesn’t carry the same weight as in an actual community where you are held accountable for your actions. I think online communities have their benefits but are dangerous when relied upon too heavily, as with most technologies. They should never be confused with the real world. |
Consider material presented in the online package and comment on the benefits these communities provides over traditional geographical community. One benefit is that people who actually live in the same city but who don’t know each other can connect and exchange a range of information. Things like asking about a nice restaurant to go to, or the nearest supermarket can be easily found out through an online community. |
Consider material presented during the lecture and make comment what this community lacks or can not provide which traditional communities can. I believe online communities can’t provide anything close to what traditional communities can. Sure they can be helpful and you can have relationships with people online, and I wouldn’t say these are invalid, they can definitely be a comfort to people, but again the danger is becoming too reliant on it. In real life communities, people can actively help if you need it, and you can fully get to know people, not the best version they choose to show online. Traditional communities have the benefit of geographical closeness, so things can be organised in a range of settings, whereas online things can only happen online. References Talking Reds. (2011, May 10th). Retrieved May 11th, 2011, from Manutd.com: http://origin-community.manutd.com/forums/p/166373/1519974.aspx#1519974 |
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