Attendees of a sporting event. Is it a community?

Fraternities and sororities are tail-gating, students are throwing footballs to one another, and there are groups cheering on their sports team. Further in the day, the Georgia Tech versus Clemson football game is about to begin as the roar of the crowd grows louder. The chaos grows as the crowd jumps to their feet, cheering on their team with school songs and phrases as the voices of thousands echo throughout the campus. Nothing but excitement and fear is in the air as the intensity of the game increases in the fourth quarter. The game is then over with Georgia Tech being the victors, the whole school is bursting into cheer for their school and proceeds to exit to celebrate with their community members.

With thousands of Georgia Tech students and faculty attending the game to support their team, games can often appear as a community for all attendees. However, there is a huge split in almost every game among the audience. Games, matches, meets or other sporting events often consist of two teams playing each other, enforcing the idea of competitiveness. As a result, the crowd is often split by the team they support as attendees socialize and cheer with other attendees that are fans of the same team. These groups, which are dictated by the team they support, often tend to avoid communicating with other groups. It is impossible to consider attendees of any game as a community because most crowds lack the necessities of a community. There is a lack in communication, communion, common goal, and acceptance between the groups who go to support their own team.

However, people with the same affinity towards a certain team show most of the characteristics of a community. They display unity in their cheers and support for their team, communicate with each other, and exhibit acceptance as they push aside each others differences in order to accomplish a common goal, supporting their team. As the Georgia Tech community and Clemson community gather to show support to their team, they sometimes show detestation towards each other, simply because they do not support the same team. These communities lack the strength to accept each other in order to transcend into a larger, stronger community due to the divide in team support. With this divide existing in practically every type of sporting event, it is impossible to consider all attendees as a community unless the attendees are a homogeneous group of people that all support the same team.

Study on Impact of Online Participation on Real Life Communities

On September 19, 2009, I recorded the amount of time spent on each online activity. Surprisingly, the total amount of time accumulated to 7.33 hours. A study by Erbring, Hillygus, and Nie shows that “the more time spent on the Internet, the less time spent with friends, family, and colleagues” (238). The number of hours spent online undoubtedly has the potential to impact participation in real life communities. With time being spent on a computer rather than with community members, it would make it difficult to augment participation within a real community. The data provided below shows the time spent in a single day online.

However, the time spent on the Internet should not be treated as a separate entity from real life communities. In fact, the Internet was acting as an extension to my community. By providing a form of communication unbounded by geographical location, I was able to continue my involvement in the community without having to be next to it. For example, through face book, e-mails, and chatting, which took up a total of 2 hours, I received an extensive amount of information on involvement opportunities and events from my Chi Psi Fraternity and Georgia Tech community, giving me the opportunity to be more involved in real communities. By offering a form of communication that is practically instantaneous in transmitting information, the Internet has the potential to save time rather than take away. Even though 2.5 hours was spent on my virtual community, the overall time spent online did not detract from my involvement in real life communities, but rather contributed to it.

Works Cited

Nie, Norman H., Sunshine Hillygus, and Lutz Erbring. The Internet in Everyday Life (The Information Age). Grand Rapids: Blackwell Limited, 2002. 215-243.

Is the Internet destroying real life (RL) communities?

This comic strip presents the illogicality of the Internet having the capability to make a user forget how to function in real life. This strip mimics accusations made by the majority of non-Internet oriented people, in particular, the effect of spending too much time on the Internet. One should realize that the Internet is a different source of communication, communion, and community, not an entity meant to destroy or inhibit real life communities.

I believe the Internet can either be used as an extension of a real life community or be treated as a separate entity. For the most part, people that join virtual communities and online groups find that the Internet provide things real life communities lack. People that feel whole joining an online group or community would probably not be interested in a real life community. But to say that the Internet is destroying real life communities is like saying basketball is destroying football, e-mails are destroying mail, or the Playstation 3 is destroying Xbox 360. Different groups gain members based upon a person’s style, type of personality, and needs.

There is a lot of bias towards this new form of communication and community. With the Internet rapidly acquiring more capabilities, gaining more members, and forging a new form of community, people that are not acclimated to it will tend to discredit it. Nessim Watson acknowledges that “people in the offline world tend to see online communities as virtual, but… participants in the online communities see them as quite real” (Watson 129). With this discrepancy amongst the offline world, it will be difficult for people in real life communities to understand that the Internet is not an entity inhibiting or destroying real life communities, but rather a new form of communication and communion. Often times, people may feel the Internet is a better source of community because it removes some of the thresholds of real life communities, such as physical appearance, geographical location, and transportation. Ultimately, the Internet is not destroying real life communities, but rather attracting a different group of people.

Works Cited

Watson, Nessim. "Why We Argue About Virtual Community: A Case Study of the Phish.Net Fan Community." Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. Ed. Steve Jones. London: Sage Publications, 1997. 102-32.

Sansom, Chip. "The Born Loser." Comic strip. Comics.com. 14 Jan. 2000. 13 Sept. 2009 .

Is the online group you are regularly participating in a community?

We spend hours together, we talk about our lives, we open our hearts to each other; the community I am in is not simply bonded by friendship, but by a bond stronger than that. Although we have never met in real life, we can recognize each others' voices, recall people by their characters names or real names, and recall each others' real life status. I dare say that my online friends, who spend several hours slaying enemies, are a community. A game, consistently ridiculed by non-players, provides feats impossible to be accomplished by any normal group which requires players to attain a higher relationship, and thus, form a community.

To provide some background information, the game I am referring to is World of Warcraft. I participate in a guild named Victory Cake, who assemble to complete difficult tasks that are otherwise impossible to accomplish without a well-developed synchronization amongst the players. The guild orientation is similar to a hierarchy in the sense that it has: a leader, a couple of officers, and members. However, even though each rank has more power than its preceding one, all players are treated as equals. There is no bias in decision-making amongst members of the guild, giving each player equal opportunity to contribute and receive rewards. Members are required to log on daily from 5:30 P.M. to 12:00 P.M., where the guild is then split into large groups called raids, consisting either twenty or forty people. These raids are formulated with the correct proportion of ‘jobs,’ such as tanking, damage-dealing, healing, crowd control, and group support. Then the guild begins to raid at 6:00 P.M, where they engage several minions and bosses in order to attain special items that make their character stronger. Each enemy, bosses in particular, require certain strategies that demand players to memorize several maneuvers and communicate heavily.

Although it seems like it is work more than play, raiding pushes players to be comfortable and closer to one another. After a certain period of time, the several of hours of raiding becomes easy and allows ample amounts of time for guild members to familiarize themselves with the rest of their guild mates. Members are required to have a microphone so they can easily communicate on the in-game chat as well as communicate orally. Since members have so many communication capabilities, it is difficult to not transcend into a community. Our guild provides a respectful and friendly environment, allowing members to open up to one another. I can recall over a hundred moments where guild members told us about their family issues, their marriages issues, their social problems, their self-esteem problems, and their deepest secrets. In this virtual community, people grab the opportunity to find themselves in this complex world and find a tight knit of friends to express themselves openly, without the fears of mockery and ridicule. I truly believe that even though most of our members have never personally met each other, we have the characteristics and bonds of a community. There are rarely occasions where I can freely express myself in real life the way I do on World of Warcraft while having the full support of the people around me.