Caroline's E-learning & Digital Cultures Blog

Bankeyfields users are very much a supportive group. Support for one another is essentail as it builds upon the feeling of belonging to a community. The users support for one another is apparent in the way that there is a shared concern for each other and the communities well being. Not only does Bankeyfields raise issues of concern but people are also invited to social events and to share in social conversation with one another. This could be seen as what Bell (2001) refers to as “social cement”. Without the presence of both social interaction and support for one another I do not believe they would be as successful as an online and physical community.

Participants in this particular forum have constructed a sense of community in their online environmnet. It may be said that this was in fact inevitable as they are already an established community. BUT, the postings to this forum simply strengthen their sense of community, physical and virtual.

Bell (2001) talks about the emergance of social codes as a means of constructing a sense of community. Users of Bankeyfields are asked to regularly contribute to forums and blogs, it is almost like an unwritten rule of the site. The moderator seems to regulalry prompt people to give feedback on issues discussed. This will be a method of allowing the communication to flow and to keep the community online intact.

The users construct a sense of community by having a shared interest in protecting their own physical space and that of the others around them. As one of the posts to the forum says,

“Thanks for the info, do we need to inform the police about this as they have a zero tolerance on teenagers with regard to this sort of thing” (Bankeyfields, 2009)

It can be said that users constructed a sense of community from the off set by establishing this website, the community was already in place.

“When people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal feeling” (Rheingold, 1993)

First of all, looking at the Bankeyfields site overall it markets itself as “Tunstalls community website”. It has the aim of inviting local people to discuss neighbourhood issues, blog, post or read crime alerts and contribute to a local directory. It also informs residents of neighbourhood watch meetings. You get a sense of community spirit from the users of this site as they share what Bell (2001) refers to as a “shared interest”. Each of these people have set up accounts on the Bankeyfields site as they feel it will allow them to contribute to local cohesion and will bring them together with like minded people. Bankeyfields has been set up as a means of supporting the sense of physical community already in place. Many have argued the value of virtual spaces as a means of developing online communities. Many support online communities as a way of creating a true sense of community. For example Kollock $ Smith (1999) believe,

“Not only are online communities real, but also that they have the potential to support face to face communication and helphold local communities together”

This is very much the case with Bankeyfields. The online users are there to support the physical community.

Looking at the particular forum thread I have decided to focus upon (http://www.bankeyfields.co.uk/forum/beware-trick-or-treat-threat-bankeyfields-neighbourhood-watch) it is apparent that the users share an online community spirit or a shared interest as discussed earlier. The Timeline, located here http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/27969 gives an indication of the frequency of the postings. Many of the forums and blogs on this site have a similar amount of actual written responces although they have a significantly larger amount of people who viewed the thread or posting. The forum tile I am focusing upon is “Beware- Trick or Treat threat” so far there have been six postings and I am expecting (hoping) there may be additional posts to come. Reverting back to the research question fo this section “Does this forum show evidence of there being a virtual community”? I would have to answer that with a resounding yes. Whay have I reached this conclusion? Well, it is apparent from the first blog posting that the users support one another. The first post has been written to advise and warn fellow users and those who share the same physical community about a bunch of rogue trick or treaters acting in the area. This shows a shared interest in keeping the area safe. The threads then go on to share similar expreiences of this incident, reinforcing a shared experience. There fore it is evident that the users of Bankeyfields act as a community on as well as offline.

How did I get here?

What online community did I choose and why.

What di I intend to find out?

What questions am I going to ask?

A Ethnographic approach involves providing a description (a beginning), an analysis (a middle) and an interpretation of the culture sharing group (an end). Esentially the ethnographer is required to take on the role of a story teller. (Cresswell 2007, p162). So first of all to the beginning, or as I will call it, the “arrival Story”

What is meant by an arrival story?

“What developed in classic ethnographic text was the inclusion of some sort of arrival story to give authenticity to the findings”. (Geertz 1988, Pratt 1986)

“The arrival story provides a metaphor for the people and society being studied, suggesting to the reader how the susequent analysis is to be framed”. (Davies 1999)

Given the limited amount of time allocated to this task (to produce a mini ethnography project, based on a virtual community) the study will be an investigative one and will take a qualititive approach to research.

How did I get here?

Obviously the primary motivation to do this task is that it is a course requirement. So my arrival here was mainly due to a desire to do well on this module. Now I am here I inted to observe the interactions of the online community and try, if it is appropriate and I receive permission to participate in some of their debates.

What online community did I choose and why?

After a number of days spent trawling through the internet for inspiration I came across Banketfields: Tunstalls Community website. This site markets its self as an area where participants can discuss local issues, blog, post and read crime reports, display images and photos and contribute to a local directory. It is a fairly well estabished site and has been running for ten years. It has around thirty users who contribute on a regular basis to the numerous blogs and forums.

I decided to choose this online community as primarily it is a community who has a similar interest to me, they care about the well being of our local area. (I omitted to mention that Tunstall, the sites focus area, is the community in which I grew up). I also felt that with the volume of interaction going on in the blogs and forums it would reveal some interesting results about the users sense of online community as well as highlighting their physical sense of community. Does the sense of physical community I know only to well about from growing up there translate to their online community?

What do I intent to find out?  

I am going to focus my attention on one thread on the forum, entitled “Beware- Trick or Treat threat” I felt that it is easily managable in the time frame allocatedto the task and that it gives a sense of their community online. The thread was started on the 18/10/2009 and is ongoing. So far there have been six postsand I expect more with this particular topic and bearing in mind the time of year! I intend to document the postings using a timeline in timetoast. The link I will post up at a later date.

What questions am I going to ask?

The questions I ma going to ask include,

What is a virtual community?

Does this forum show evidence of there being a virtual community?

How do participants construct a sense of community?

Are the users supportive of one another?

Is this a good place to study given the overall cultural themes we are tackling?  (M.Clari)

Once I have answered these questions and any others I think appropriate as I go along will be presented in a series of blog postings. In my blog postings relating to this mini project I will tag with Ethnography mini project.