Communities

"Traditionally a "community" has been defined as a group of interacting people living in a common location" - Wikipedia.

This sentence to me, seems like the original definition of the term, but as the technological age advances, and humans become more and more diverse, this term becomes distorted, and loosely thrown around, with more meanings than ever.

One such community that would be more associated in this digital age, is an online or virtual community. Whether you like it or not, we are all part of an online community, even using the internet is considered being part of a community. The likes of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, these social networking sites are communities. Then music communities, Soundcloud, Mixcloud etc, are specific for music fans, where people post content for others to view, use, alter, etc. Like a traditional community, people are in the same general or local area (in this case a website). This occurs in a virtual world and from people all over the world, hence Marshall McLuhan's term "Global Village", this has never been so true. As the world diversifies, people have less and less time for face to face interactivity for most of all the people in their life. Even in business, some of the things we do now, would not be possible without access to the internet and help from virtual communities. People regularly talk with others over the internet, but who interact and communicate with each other on a day to day basis, friends, family, relatives. This is something I have experienced personally.

With tradition communities, virtual communities are quite similar, but in different settings, you have people who are new to a community, (in a town and on a website). and you also have people who are regulars in the community (local/well known people in a town and moderators/Admins on a website). virtual communities are contrived from traditional communites but are familiar in setting and function. Someone has to be classed a member, to be considered part of a community. But these virtual communities know no bounds as the the geographical boundaries are eliminated and anybody can talk to anybody and share common interests, insights and idea's. New friendships can be formed, creativity can flow, new movements, groups and associations can form, both locally and internationally. Through online communities, you can find things that you never knew existed, or had any information about, I personally, have had a good experience through joining online communities. A few years ago, I wanted to join an American football club in Ireland, but knew nothing about it, so our good friend Google help me, and with a little search of "Irish American Football", my world was transformed. I had access to new information and was all of a sudden I was chatting to people about the sport in Ireland, what teams there were, how I could join a team, where they were based. This was ALL thanks to the Irish American Football Community, which I found virtually. They do exist, and you will find people with the same passion and commitment for things online like when you do in reality. The possibilities are endless with virtual communities. There is a whole world to explore.

Fan Culture

This weeks discussion is about fan culture, which is being a fan of any piece of work, be it a movie, a decade, a game, a book etc. So there are many cultures that can be picked apart and explained, but I thought, none better than one I am interested and take part in myself. Which is.. Gaming culture.

I am an avid gamer myself, and am in tune with a lot going on in gaming communities and check regularly, forums, websites, blogs for new movies, parodies, comics etc. for different works of fan fiction (which is work from the fans of a particular series/piece of work, but it is not from the original creators/writers/directors).

One of the more popular gaming works of fan fiction is the Red vs. Blue videos, which takes from the original Halo franchise and turns it into a comedic series of video's using the games characters and forming new dialogue for the characters.

There are so many example of fan fiction in gaming out there that it is hard to show someone how it works, unless they are in the culture, understand the workings and interests of the fans of this particular culture. But one game culture and community that I was apart of for a long time was form the game, Team Fortress 2. This community was one where fans are very important to the workings of the game itself, where developers of the game sent out polls, and ideas of the next levels or characters etc. and the gamers would send there own designs and ideas in, sort of like a competition and the community would vote for the best and the developers would implement the ideas into the game. Developers would constantly look for feedback and request that gamers sent in their ideas to further the game. There was a whole community surrounding this game alone, including comics, movies, blogs etc. this was one of my favorite works of fan fiction from the culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-yPQ51GOfk

There is so much to cover in gaming cultures alone, that even games themselves can have cultures based around them. There are many exhibitions all over the world for gamers to attend and meet up, express there opinions and ideas, show others their own work, and meet the creators of the original work.

Some of the these Expo's are: Comic Con, California Extreme, Penny Arcade Expo (which is run by fans).

Media Panic!! :O

In this post I will talk about a particular media panic and explain what exactly a media panic is.

Media panic is a term often used to describe criticism against a new medium or media technology. and we also have a Moral Panic.. A Moral Panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. these go hand in hand when applied to modern media culture.

One industry that has seen many criticisms and targeted by mass media to induce a media panic is the computer games industry. It is often the computer games industry that takes much of the heat from news papers, televised news readings, online articles, radio etc. With higher authorities such as politicians and opinion leaders thinking that video games stimulate violence, crime, sexual crimes, even mass murder. But in this very interesting article http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-5831007-7.html, it explains that how after studying the effects of online gamers over a months period of playing, there is no viable link between violence and computer games. this being said, the scientists that carried out the study said, that there is no telling what the long term effects could be, but there is no strong indication of violent behaviour in computer gamers after playing a violent game.

This is good news in my opinion, because no longer can politicians turn to video games when there is a national tragedy, then just slate the games industry for making people do this, all it gets is bad publicity from the mass media, by telling the crime fearing people basically, video games = anti social behaviour, and on a larger scale, aggressive attacks, murders, etc. In other words, scaring the people even more, until maybe one day, nobody leaves there house in the fear that, they open there from door and they will get murdered.

Only recently, I read an article that blamed the Moscow bombings on the cult video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, where in the game there was a highly controversial scene in an airport, which was identical to what happened in Moscow. I think this was only a matter of time before this was blamed for something that happened. This is stupid in my opinion, why isn't the same thing said in the films industry? they get off Scot free, while a weaker industry takes the entire blame for something like the Moscow bombings (along with many other cases). this article pretty much sums up this paragraph - http://www.1up.com/news/russian-airport-bombing-connected-modern-warfare-2-media

As technology becomes more advanced, especially for gaming, this means games get more realistic, and as games get more realistic, they (more than likely) will get aimed towards a more adult audience. This is were the Video games rating act 1994 comes into effect. I cant understand, why 12 year olds are allowed to play games with an 18+ ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rating by their parents, but then when violent or graphic images are portrayed, the game gets the blame.. HELLO!!! Wake up, parents! This personally annoy's me, on many levels. The game is for adults (clearly, if the rating is 18+), it even comes with warnings on the back of the box that says, "Sexual themes", "Intense Violence" etc. But as soon as there is an uproar about a game by parents, the media speculate everything around the game, giving bad publicity, and causing fear in something that people don't really understand, it gives people biased and wrong knowledge and information that these things are bad, and nearly, persuading people to be 'against' something they know nothing about. Which is unfair, because people are like sponges and blank canvasses... They want to believe it is bad, so they can blame something for when anything goes wrong.