Culture is an “imagined community” (as cited in Piller, Anderson, 1991, p. 211). Membership of a culture as Piller (1991) states, is too vast to define as a true group since it is impossible for all members to know one another, and therefore culture is a discursive construction. As Hampton (2004) also identified community had been free from geographic borders for quite some time. Therefore, the possibility of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction is a continuous part of community whether it’s in an online or offline setting.
It is only natural then, that what we once defined as imaginary borders between countries and continents as defined by bodies of institutions for example, governments, is now predominantly dominant in the Internet realm. The major difference in the Internet realm, is the fact that biology of visible ethnicity is not necessarily visible depending on the community you have decided to participate in, for example deviantart.com (a community that shares art work amongst other artists or commonly referred to as “deviants”). Community and culture allows the possibility of redefined borders. People are no longer constrained or judged by their physical appearance, which then offers the opportunity to explore identity and innovate without the fear of superficial judgment (Hampton, 2004). Borders are newly defined by infrastructure, servers, online communities, and so forth; borders are no longer physical attributes defined by conventional institutions.
If our own personal life history becomes compartmentalised by pages in space, for example Facebook and so on, the analogy we could assume is that of our own home – note I am distinguishing home as a personal space versus house which is not. We can invite our friends. family and colleagues to “visit,” but rather the more interesting thing is we broadcast, and externalise ourselves in this home. The borders in the Internet and more specifically the networks we are associated are a “new kind of territory” (Wigley, 2006), the home was once a private ideology, and now it is a shared with the select few we have given access to. We can have many homes, or rooms that are additions to our homes (depending on how we choose to consolidate our social media, for example an iPhone that can pull Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, Tumblr updates). Wigley (2006) had identify that “settlements” are now “mobile spaces” the movements can become accelerated by multiple overlapping networks.
Much like an offline community, we share feedback, information, and criticisms on various homes on the Internet. Imagined communities become realised as various spaces on the Internet make it possible. Though we cannot physically live in these homes, the interactions that one may have amongst individuals in these spaces are, and therefore borders between online and offline can become blurred.
This video from The Big Bang Theory (friendship algorithm) – demonstrates how friendship can be an algorithm.Though we may define our personal spaces in a particular way, it is interesting to think of how code and algorithms attempt to understand the essence of friendship and personal interests found in Web 2.0 media.
References
Hampton, K. (2004). Networked sociability online, offline in Castells, M. (ed) (2004), The networked society: a cross-cultural perspective, Cheltenham: Edward, Elgar, pp. 217-232
Piller, I. (2007). Linguistics and intercultural communication. Lingustics and Language Compass, 1 (3), 208-226.
Wigley, M. (2006). Network fever. in Chun, W., Hui, K., and Keenan, T. New media. Old Media: A history and theory reader, New York and Oxon: Routledge. p. 375 – 397
G33ky M3 :D 