Amy Bruckman’s article presents a notion that we need to take the value judgement out of the word “community” and instead focus on how community is a category of associated people who center around a “prototype.”
Bruckman points to research by Rosch in categorization and tells us that a robin is a better example of a bird than a penguin. Ok. I get that. You mean to say, “birds of a feather flock together?” That notion has been around since the mid-16th century!
I’m not sure what the “take away” is from this research. I suppose Bruckman is trying to burst open new ideas about what community means. What are the practical implications of this idea of a “prototype?”
I think social networking is no different in its base motivation for connectivity — people joining around a common cause, a common interest or a common gripe. It’s as natural as pie to have some members of the community more “prototypical” than others. Gosh, it’s almost “queen-bee-ish” as in the world of teenage peer pressure. That reminds me of a song:
Paul Revere and the Raiders (one verse and chorus):
“You and I didn’t have a lot of friends,
Didn’t have too much to say,
So they never would let us join in,
All the games they used to play.
Seems like it was only yesterday,
Down at Lincoln Junior High.
I remember what the kids used to say,
As we’d go strolling by,
…
Birds of a feather,
We should be together
Like birds of a feather.
Got to be together
Like birds of a feather.”
I think the bigger question is: will social networking change our notion of community in a practical sense? Are the protagonists in the song above going to better off in this networked world? Do today’s junior high students feel less left out, less isolated because of the increased connectivity?
