The Forum > Article Comments > On the question of community: blogs and belonging > Comments
On the question of community: blogs and belonging : Comments
By Nicholas Hookway, published 8/12/2005Nick Hookway examines 'community' in a virtual world and our declining civic, political and religious participation.
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I also want to explore this further. I need to know where do you blog?
Posted by Shirazi, Thursday, 8 December 2005 3:38:45 PM
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Me too. I'm also doing a PhD and thinking of a section on blogs. The thing that bothers me about online communities is that like-minded people clustering is a fine source of warmth and cosiness, but it's too easy to avoid people who don't agree with you. They tend to be an intellectual form of cultural enclaves and while the comfort that offers keeps me coming back, it's an unrealistic picture of the social world.
Good luck with it. It's easy to imagine your work making an important contribution to how things go in the future. Posted by chainsmoker, Friday, 9 December 2005 8:54:49 AM
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This is of high potential.
Posted by Realist, Friday, 9 December 2005 10:03:47 AM
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Great article
I would have to disagree somewhat with Chainsmoker. One of the great things about on-line communities is that they are not constrained by the boundaries of space and time in the same way as communities based around a place and this expands the kind of ideas and types of people with which you can engage. It can be reasonably easy to avoid people who disagree with you in place based communities. The part of Melbourne where I live is mostly populated by people who share my political views, as is my local pub and also my workplace. On-Line Opinion is one way that I can escape my own intellectual /cultural enclave. One interesting thing about on-line communities is that, more so than most other types of community, you have to make a choice to belong to then. They are easy to leave and easier to be excluded from than many place based communities. For better or worse I don't think that on-line communities offer the same security in belonging as many other communities. One other point, on-line communities/relationships often overlap with other types of relationships. Some people still seem to like face-to-face relationships and members of on-line communities often end up meeting in person, in fact use on-line communities primarily to facilitate this Posted by DW, Friday, 9 December 2005 10:32:51 AM
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Try www.blogger.com free and easy
Posted by Steve Madden, Friday, 9 December 2005 2:18:14 PM
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Hi Nick,
Thanks for your article. As a former sociology student and blogger I found it an interesting reflection considering I rarely seem to read about the applications of sociological theory in the mainstream. I recently decided to try my hand at blogging I feel a little ncomfortable mixing the subjective with the objective but I can also see advocacy/educational potential in providing a window into certain personal experiences. In my case the experience is that of a single parent raising a gifted child through homeschooling. http://rosiereal.blogspot.com/ cheers Rosie Williams Posted by RosieWilliams, Friday, 9 December 2005 3:27:10 PM
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