Jess's Tute Presentation- 'The Virtual Community' by Howard Rheingold

WOMN 2205: Week 10 Tutorial- 'The Virtual Community' by Howard Rheingold
Some information about the author (Howard Rheingold)
• This is Rheingold’s website where you can find some of his publications (Rheingoldian writing), some of his digitized paintings (Rheingoldian Art), blogs and links to other sites. http://www.rheingold.com/
• Rheingold is a lecturer of participatory media/collective action at the UC Berkeley School of Information, digital journalism at Stanford University and is also a visiting Professor at De Montfort University.
The Virtual Community
• In 1985 Rheingold became one of the original members of WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link)
• He also coined the phrase ‘Virtual Community’
• WELL members interacted online but also met up IRL (In Real Life) offline. People who Rheingold met online he was able to interact with offline too, “my computer screen later manifested in front of me in the physical world in the form of real people” (Trend (ed.) 2001)
• Rheingold admits that online interaction at first sounded ‘cold’ to him, the article makes it clear that he has become a great supporter of the internet as a communication medium, to conclude the article Rheingold comments that “my virtual communities also inhabit my life…my sense of family at the most fundamental level has been virtualized.” (Trend (ed.) 2001)

Some definitions and further information
• WELL- (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) an online community founded in 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant as an online forum for the writers and readers of The Whole Earth Review. The WELL website describes WELL as “the primordial ooze where the online community movement was born” http://www.well.com/
• MUD- (Multi-User Dungeons/Domain/Dimension) a multi-player online game, generally a fantasy based setting where users interact and complete activities/tasks. For more info see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD
• CMC- (Computer Mediated Communication) Interaction between people facilitated by computers eg. e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms…
• BBS- (Bulletin Board System) Users connect computers and then use a terminal program to exchange files and communicate. For more info see; http://www.fanciful.org/bbs-promotion/how-to-bbs/bbs.htm

Questions
• What do you think about Rheingold’s analogy which compares the growth internet communities and technologies to the growth of bacteria?
• I also found it interesting that Rheingold suggested; “whenever CMC technology becomes available to people anywhere, they inevitably build virtual communities with it” (Trend (ed.) 2001) Do you think this is true, is our Blogger blog and WebCT an example of this?