I'm working my way through _Bowling Alone_ by Robert Putnam; I'm sad I haven't read it sooner. Have any of you read it? What did you think? Do you know of any similar studies?
anyway, here's a little bit about online communities ; )
"Computer-mediated communication is, to be sure, more egalitarian, frank, and task oriented than face-to-face communication. Participants in computer-based groups often come up with a wider range of alternatives. However, because of the the paucity of social cues and social communication, participants in computer-based groups find it harder to reach consensus and feel less solidarity with one another. They develop a sense of "depersonalization" and are less satisfied with the group's accomplishments. Computer-based groups are quicker to reach an intellectual understanding of their shared problems--probably because they are less distracted by "extraneous" social communication-- but they are much worse at generating the trust and reciprocity necessary to implement that understanding" (176).
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can you tell me a bit more about the shody data?
actually, online communities mark one of the current (and rapidly growing) trends; no they are not, as you put it, traditional, but they are hardly in decline. His point with regard to computer-mediated communities had more to do with the fact that they are hardly a replacement for traditional face-to-face friendship networks than it had to do with any reference to decline.
Anyway, I'm curious as to what kinds of social-capital rich networks your are referencing (i.e. what's the analog to New York City and LA?)
It's interesting to note that Putnam does spend a third of a chapter speaking about the rise of small support groups(and quoting Wuthnow's Sharing the Journey) as part of a discussion on three rising trends in human organization. In the end, he believes that small groups serve to bolster the self above any notion of a true bridging community.
Yes, the human being is capable of evolving her relational patterns to meet her emotional needs as the world around her becomes ever more fractured and "virtual"; but there is a frighteningly high probability that this "new" human will come out more self-centered, more numb to compassion, and less accountable than ever before. Yes, there may be more diversity along the old categories of difference (race and gender, for example); but is it not inevitable that "new" catagories will emerge and we'll be more segregated and divided than before? Perhaps not, but I've got my hunches about the effects of the unchecked under-currents of this global economy.
Anyway, I'll read W's book by the end of the week.
ok so I've read some critical sections from STJ; and I can see why you don't like Putnam's treatment of small groups--he totally overlooks W's findings that small groups have a built in bridging effect: for example, over sixty percent of group members said they "worked with the group to help other people in need outside of the group" (among other similar data). Though W does speak of some self-heightening/centering effects in the group trend, he seems to report that these are hardly the central or dominant thrust.
Well, I'd have to know what you mean by "moral" : ). But in the basic sense, I think there definately is structural immorality and structural morality; when Isaiah speaks of the nobels robbing the widows and orphans, I don't think they were actually going out and taking stuff from the poor--he was talking about a sinful structure they didn't allow themselves to see.
How could the structure be neutral? How could anything that is socially constructed be neutral? Everything pulls and pushes us toward becoming a certain kind of person, does it not?
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