You are responding to Jenkins' idea of the "anatomy of a knowledge community." Jenkins defines knowledge community as the community that comes out of a shared knowledge-base. I want you to discuss your version of the anatomy of a knowledge community using one of your own knowledge communities.
I should, after seeing your journal, understand your version of a knowledge community in relationship to Jenkins' explanation as well as how it connects to your own being--as a literate person, a FSU student, a member of the EWM major, a composer, an editor, etc.
***Your audience for this is other members of your knowledge community.
***Be creative and think outside the box. It should be more than you fulfilling an assignment--more about who you are as a composer and pushing yourself to think creatively using your own language.
***Per normal this should be based in evidence and engage with other posts.
Due: Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Although I have never been to Bonnaroo Music Festival, I think the way its knowledge community works is fascinating. Bonnaroo is a music festival in Nashville, Tennessee that takes place every summer. Its lineup includes a variety of musicians from the Decemberists and the Black Keys to Eminem and Jay Z. It has been called the Woodstock of our generation. If I ever get enough time and money to see this kind of compilation of artists, I will definitely be camping out at Bonnaroo.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting part of Bonnaroo’s knowledge community is the way they leak things out to the public. This year, Bonnaroo released a series of clues on Twitter for fans to decode in order to figure out some of the bands in the 2011 line-up. The first clue was “The one monkey that was the warmest and his offspring” (You Ain’t No Picasso, http://www.youaintnopicasso.com/2010/01/20/bonnaroo-lineup-riddles-start-leaking-out/). No, this is not an easy task. It takes people who really know music to decipher these clues. I thought I knew my stuff, but when reading over the clues with my co-workers, we couldn’t figure out a single one. Apparently, the solution to this clue is singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. I can tell you I did not figure this out myself (Thank God for the internet, right?). But on one of the many Bonnaroo blogs/discussion boards there is an explanation that says in order to decipher clues, you must use alternate spellings or synonyms for some of the words. So someone thought of the band The Monkees, and the warmest one was Michael Nesmith because of his trademark wool hat. As for offspring, an alternate word would be “son.” So in order for this clue to work, they took his first name (Michael) and added the offspring part (son). That gives you Michaelson. Thus, indie pop singer Ingrid Michaelson. Crazy, right?
As I read through Jenkins’ Survivor Spoiler, Bonnaroo’s line-up clues are what came to mind. It’s not exactly the same in that people aren’t being deceitful and ruining it for everyone. But it is a community of people coming together to discuss something that they all have a genuine interest in and are excited about. Jenkins talks about the water cooler conversations and how people always love to bring something to it. Everybody wants to communicate and share and be the first one to know something. As I sat with people trying to figure out the clues, it gave us something exciting to think about and talk about.
I think it is so interesting that these water cooler conversations are now what dominate the internet. We are in this new age where we can pretty much talk about anything we want and there will more than likely be someone else who is interested. The internet connects us and brings us closer to the people who share our interest. I think as an EWM major, it is important to understand and utilize these tools. It helps us become more aware of the ways in which we can get our writing out there. It shows us how to connect with the type of audience that suits our writing best. It is becoming very easy for people to connect. It is our job to learn how to use it to benefit ourselves and our education, as well as for some fun conversation.
After reading Jenkins piece “Spoiling Survivor: The Anatomy of a Knowledge Community” the idea of what the term is meant to mean is evident. I think the example used of the show Survivor made it easier to understand because the show is a part of present generations and is or has been popular. Basically, I see a “knowledge community” meaning a group of people who communicate and discuss a subject of common interest with each other. Internet technology allows the group to vary and extend pretty much all over the world. “It is fundamentally collective knowledge, impossible to gather together in a single creature.” (28) A knowledge community produces various inputs from members put together to produce as much information as possible on the subject. This informs other people interested and involved in the communication of facts that they maybe did not know about. With all people from a knowledge community putting forth different ideas, the maximum amount of information can be found out rather than by a single person. The show Survivor, rather its followers, is indeed a good example of a knowledge community. Jenkins goes on to explain how many people try to find out what will happen in the season before it is aired on television, since the show is taped anyways. Different people post blogs of information they may have found out, and have even started putting “spoiler” as the subject so people can choose to read or not. A lot of people also follow certain people who tend to get a lot of the information right. ChillOne is mentioned a lot. It is believed he may even be a part of the show; he normally has the answers.
ReplyDeleteI think an appropriate example of a knowledge community, especially for our generation, would be readers of both the Harry Potter series and the Twilight Saga. These are among the most read novels of our time, and both are very adventurous and filled with anticipation. Among the fans, it varies on how quickly people get through the books. Many people are so obsessed, they get the books at midnight the day it goes on sale and will have it read that day. Others who have busy lives going to school or working may not have the time to do that, but get around to reading them. So naturally, for the slower readers, there is a danger of finding out information before they read it. A big thing that was leaked was when the headmaster of Hogwarts in the 6th Harry Potter book is killed. That was so frustrating because once someone said it and you heard, you couldn’t take it back. Also, in the final book of the Twilight Saga, another spoiler was if Bella became a vampire or not, seeing as how that was a major issue throughout the series.
the rest...
ReplyDeleteI think understanding a knowledge community is important to the EWM major, an FSU student, and being a person in general. As said before, a knowledge community is communication among people who share similar interests. With Facebook being so popular, this is used every day. A lot of Facebook users add friends if they notice they like a unique band that they like as well, or something like that. Communication has ultimately moved to the online world, and it is easy to communicate through knowledge communities online. This is especially helpful being a college student. Going to college, especially a university away from home, knowledge communities can aid in making new friends that go to the same college. As for our major, I think a point of it is to understand and be able to utilize editing and writing online. By being part of knowledge communities, it will help us explore and communicate with the digital world. Many knowledge communities seem to contain some sort of element of media as well, ie.) Survivor, reality shows, Hollywood gossip, etc.
I think Amanda’s example of the musical festival is interesting as a form of a knowledge community. It’s kind of like the Survivor explanation, except finding out about what bands will be there won’t spoil what happens like in book, movies, or television. It just increases anticipation if people find out that there’s a band going they really like, and maybe will change their mind into going or not. I like this example because it clears up that knowledge communities aren’t necessarily just spoilers, which are really common, but can just be about people sharing the same interest and finding out facts about it.
Jenkins really nailed one of my pet peeves in the reading– spoilers. I’ve never liked to know the ending of something I have not yet encountered, mainly because I think it tarnishes my own individual experience. I would be mad if, as Sam mentions in her comment, someone had told me the ending of Harry Potter 6 before I’d read it—that’s a big deal! Then I started thinking about spoilers in terms of Jenkins’ idea of a knowledge community and, well, they didn’t seem all that bad. After all, “The age of media convergence enables communal, rather than individualistic, modes of reception” (Jenkins 26). There is nothing to lose from wrangling individual knowledge of a subject of shared interest into a pool of information. That way, everyone has access to a more comprehensive collection of knowledge, which I have to admit is incredibly convenient in such a competitive and fast-paced world. Take Facebook, for example. People are not congregating to spoil Survivor necessarily, but they could organize such a group if they wanted to do so. My point is that Facebook is a tool of the 21st century that allows knowledge communities to flourish and organize through social networking. What could be more useful than a collective organization that you don’t have to get off the couch to contribute to? Groups, friends, profiles, and most importantly shared groups of interests, are all central to the anatomy of a social networking knowledge community. If I want to join a group for my favorite band, I can be sure it’s there, and what’s even better, there are probably thousands of other people who share that interest, and who therefore share information I couldn’t have known otherwise. Everyone has a different fact to contribute, and if you are a member of the community, you have the right to all of that knowledge. I think this idea of collective intelligence is what Jenkins is trying to get at in the text when he describes knowledge community.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Survivor spoilers were ceaselessly investigating to try and verify the names of the contestants, I thought instantly of Facebook stalking. Everyone who has a Facebook has probably done it at least once—trying to find out more about a person that someone in their social group shares by going through their pictures, reading their comments, looking at their info, what have you, all out of curiosity. Its not as intense, but the same premise is there. As an FSU student, I have to love Facebook for the simple reason that it connects me to the FSU student knowledge community. Not only have I been able to keep in touch with new and old friends, but I have also been provided with an outlet to exchange information about one of my newest knowledge communities, the FSU international Program for Switzerland. Like Jenkins states on page 27, this community is also “held together by the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge.” It was made by one of the students, and we all contribute facts that we know about the area, where we are planning to travel, helpful items to pack, etc. It is extremely useful. As a composer in the EWM major I think it is not only useful, but necessary to engage in knowledge communities to be able to share ideas, thoughts, and be able to write in a space that collectively expands knowledge. Just like the Survivor Spoilers, the Bonnaroo community and the spoilers of contemporary popular novels, my International Programs community is here because it is enabled by the media and accessibility of information we have today.
After reading Jenkins' chapter on knowledge communities, the first example that popped into my head was Twilight. But since Sam already discussed that one, I'd like to broaden that topic to film. Specifically award shows, and even more specifically, The Academy Awards. Every year, the best films that came out get nominated for the highest honor in the entertainment industry; an Oscar. For the twelve months following the award show, blogs, discussion boards, news sights, and gossip columns buzz with hear-say as to which films will be nominated, and which ones deserve to win. This is especially important to the film community, or in this case, the film "knowledge" community. From acting skills to technicalities of camera movement, each distinguished film of the year is analyzed and torn apart piece by piece by members of this community as they search for a common agreement on who "deserves" to win. This continues until after the show each year when that same community then discusses why certain films were left un recognized and why some won every award they were nominated for. Reading some of the blogs and news sites because of my love for The Oscars, I've realized that it isn't knowledge that is what these "knowledge communities" thrive on, its opinion. A lot of these communities include spoilers of the films, of the behind the scenes cast and crew, and the underlying heart of films.
ReplyDeleteAs an EWM student, knowledge communities are extremely important for us to explore and learn about the inner workings of almost every spectrum of our social media. Every book, movie, celebrity, show, video game, and politician has a knowledge community that, these days, is almost entirely based on the internet. As writers, this is important to our stories. What we write, what we learn about people. Simply watching a movie that you are assigned to review is not enough, but digging in and reading what the people who LOVE this movie and read the books and wear the t-shirts say...now thats understanding.
Jenkins discusses what a knowledge community is by using the relation to the reality television show, SURVIVOR, and the knowledge community of spoilers. She delves into the fact that a knowledge community is shared knowledge with a group, “The age of media convergence enables communal rather than individualistic, modes of reception” (Jenkins, 26). She describes with the example of television, we are alone when we watch but now have the opportunity to share online, “For most of us, television in total silence and isolation. And for a growing number of people, the water cooler has gone digital…Online forums offer an opportunity for participants to share their knowledge and opinions” (Jenkins, 26). Going online to forums is now a place to share in a “knowledge community.”
ReplyDeleteI think a knowledge community is going to a place where people can discuss common interests. You share the knowledge with others, it may pass on. Individuality is present sometimes, and sometimes it is not. The common element still remains—that people are sharing facts or opinions with a subject they are interested in.
After thinking about what a knowledge community is, the examples that come to my mind are the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a knowledge community that shares personal information with you and your friends. Photos, statuses, location, are just a few of the details you can learn more about friends or strangers. Twitter is the social networking site that limits you to space (150 characters or less) which forces you to be to the point with the personal news you want to share. The commonality these sites have in common is the ability to share and look at others personal information and posts. Your daily life occurrences- from major to minute personal matters are out there on the web- if you choose.
This knowledge is given to the public, to whoever wants it, whenever the user wants to put it up.
This in a way is a remediation of the traditional means of personal communication to the online world. Family members, friends, strangers, or whoever can share information on their daily lives, or even to discuss culture, or political issues. The possibilities are limitless. As Jenkins stated before, people watch TV alone and go to online blogs to interact about a certain subject. Well people can go to Facebook and be engaged with people they care to communicate with. The knowledge in the community varies broadly.
I like to write my blog post and do the research before I look at any other posts. This way my input is original and I can see my piers' thoughts from their perspective. The first post was Amanda. She paralleled Jenkins’ spoilers with Bonaroo’s spoilers. The little “clues” that are sent out to hint who will be in the show and I get how this is a knowledge community because people interested will respond and try to guess.
Jenkins’ thoughts on spoilers and the knowledge community are insightful, but I think that the concept of knowledge community can stand alone and mean more without being connected to spoilers.
After reading Jenkins story “Spoiling Survivor” and getting an understanding of what Jenkins defines as a knowledge community, I put all my thoughts together to come up with something similar. On page 27, Jenkins states collective intelligence will gradually alter ways that commodity culture operates. I believe that the term knowledge community explains itself; community intelligence. The beauty of working in groups and collaborating with others helps us to learn from one another. Survivor is the example used by Jenkins where she talks about spoiling as collective intelligence. Agreeing with both Sam and Kayla, spoiling is one of the worst things that can come out of knowledge based communities. Who in the world wants to know the ending to a book, movie, or play that they are about to see?! I sure don’t and I know many people would agree.
ReplyDeleteKnowledge communities can be both beneficial where others can learn from one another, and of course spoil. People think in so many different ways, have multiple of different opinions, and different process’s when it comes to analyzing situations. Immediately when reading Jenkins piece, what came right to my mind was the popular television show The Bachelor when talking about knowledge communities. It is the same general idea as the popular television show Survivor. The audience perceives each woman differently than another person might. The community reacts in many different ways to this. For example, I watched the show with my sister and roommate. My sister thought the winner of the show would be one girl and gave her reasoning as to why she thought that. My roommate believed that the winner would be the other girl, merely explaining her reason’s as well. After reading what this is assignment was, I analyzed the two of them before I wrote about it here on the blog. It’s true that the idea’s of another person can teach you something you may not have known. As Jenkins states, “not everyone knows everything, but everyone knows something.” If any person knew about absolutely everything, knowledge communities would not even exist, nor would spoiling for that matter. More or less, education and knowledge would all be equal.
I believe that knowledge communities are very important to me when it comes to being a EWM major. When composing, (whether it be a book, website, or movie) the composer need to make sure they meet the needs and attention of the audience. If editing, it needs to be recognized to the composer that the opinions of the audience matter, and that it can enhance a person’s piece to the best of its ability. I believe that water cooler conversations are completely dominating: sometimes in a good way and sometimes bad as well. In online media, people are able to state opinions. For example; people can be more interested in the reviews of a movie before actually seeing it. There are only things that I find negative about online media. The first is knowing whether the information is true or not. The second is that I do not believe online media and movies should be the first way people want to educate or create a knowledge based community. I believe that people don’t only need to be creating their knowledge based community off of media. After all, the world did function one day a long time ago without all of this.
All in all, I believe that Jenkins thoughts on a knowledge community are intuitive just like Alexis says, but I think that the term knowledge community uses more than just the idea of spoilers and media. It’s more than just figuring out a television show and how it works. It’s much, much more.
The article features a fascinating quote from Pierre Levy that says “No one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity”. I think that quote is a good summary of the kind of knowledge communities that Jenkins is talking about in his article. As he mentions, the internet and its online communities have made the water cooler we assemble around and discuss TV or other topics has gone digital. Because of the massive potential of connectivity in the internet, people from thousands and thousands of miles away can share knowledge with each other in the same online community. This has knocked down the only barrier that kept the entire world from being able to connect, and with these endless possibilities, the adage that no one person knows everything, yet everyone knows something provides exciting possibilities for creating stimulating and informational online communities and allowing people access to a nearly endless supply of sources of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everyone my age participates regularly in online communities of some type with social networking like facebook and twitter so popular. I use facebook to stay connected within my community of friends and acquaintances at FSU. Also, as Kayla points out, facebook is an easy way to rally people for a cause or event because you can reach such a vast network of people without them even having to get off the couch. This makes it a bustling social community that has grown populated enough to have a real effect on the real world.
Another online community I have witnessed that Jenkins’ Survivor article reminded me of is the Florida State sports website Tomahawk Nation. It’s a site that’s run by all volunteers, and no one member of the site is a professional with the ability to run a whole sports website, but there are various volunteer experts, who are somewhat analogous to the well-regarded posters who are welcomed into the closed off communities on the survivor forum, who each cover different sports at FSU as well as maintain different parts of the website. During football recruiting season, there is always an ongoing discussion thread about recruiting news that various members who through a variety of ways gain information about recruiting news help make pretty informative. There are professional websites that cost money to access that contain the same type of news, but between the various members of the community who seek out news, the free web site is able to provide the majority of the same information.
The internet has connected the whole world, and that connection breaks down the borders that kept information from freely spreading globally. It has certainly changed things in the world of News and Journalism, which has gone from a print based medium to a permanent, 24/7 news cycle where stories can be broken moments after they happen thanks to technology. This real-time connection has made everyone able to contribute to the world’s well of knowledge, whether it be about news, sports, or a tv show, its clear that the digital water cooler has the potential to mobilize people in a very potent way, and it will be something interesting to watch as these communities continue to evolve.
I can’t even count on my hand how many knowledge communities I’m involved with. There are so many people I share knowledge with and it all stems from feeling fellowship with others unified by common attitudes, interests, goals, and ultimately, knowledge. In my opinion, a knowledge community can be between two or more people. As Jenkins puts it, “people don’t watch TV in isolation-people watch it and discuss with others” (26). How true is that! You want to discuss the show with your friends and people around you. Therefore, a knowledge community is so much more than web-based. Sure, like Jenkins thoroughly explains, Survivor spoilers go on the web to exchange information about the show. But that is no different than you telling a group of your friends what happened on the show. Rather than conversing in person, it is done on-line. This can create many problems, I feel, when trying to decipher who is really the person talking.
ReplyDeleteI am in no way discounting on-line knowledge communities. Of course in this world we are always on-line! In fact, Jenkins points out that, “we live in a global village and people from around the world talk to each other” (30). This is awesome. We don’t have to be face to face with people of just our own local community. We now have access to people all over the world we can discuss information with. Sam says, “with all people from a knowledge community putting forth different ideas, the maximum amount of information can be found out rather than by a single person.” I think this is the reason why communities form in the first place. People realize they alone are not adequate enough to produce the information so they look to other sources, and it doesn’t matter if it’s your classmate, friend, or fellow blogger. However, Gabrielle has a good point about blogs and news sites at the Oscars in that, “I've realized that it isn't knowledge that is what these "knowledge communities" thrive on, its opinion.” Where do we draw the line between knowledge and opinion? Some people may take opinion for knowledge, but we have to be in tune to our environment and decipher between the two.
For me, as a literate person, I like to talk with people in person, on a social basis. Therefore, it is natural for me to be involved with a lot of knowledge communities. However, most are in person. But then again there is Facebook, our class blog, and the blackboard discussion board. As an FSU student, there is so much to take in at this university I just can’t get enough of it. In fact, I wish I could get involved in more knowledge communities to learn different things and meet new people whom I could share my interests with. But, I am involved with many campus organizations that fulfill that desire. As a communication major, and English minor, it is imperative for me to realize the impact knowledge communities have in our culture today. The potential is so great and in 5, 10, 20 years, it will most likely all change. As a composer, it is good to have a broad general knowledge and a good sense of where other people stand on certain issues. This is why a knowledge community is beneficial.
In essence, knowledge communities form the backbone of our culture today. We are constantly receiving and exchanging information, and faster than ever before. But as Jenkins utterly states, “it is at moments of crisis, conflict, and controversy that communities are forced to articulate the principles that guide them” (26). This is when communities are challenged by what they once thought was true, opinion for fact, and have to reevaluate things in order to continue growing together as a knowledge community.
It is apparent from the directions we received on how to construct our responses to this blog that we ourselves are a knowledge community. We all have common objectives which are essentially to fulfill the task of completing our homework assignment, to make sure that we really understand what we are working with so that we are prepared for in class assignments in the future, and to feed off each other’s insight so that we can walk out the door the last day of class feeling that we have learned something that we can take with us. Because of our common objectives, we research by reading the assigned work and then by reading each other’s responses and come up with greater understandings that we may not have come up with had it not been for our colleagues. Once upon a time this process was done by writing books and newspapers but now it is done at lightning speed over the internet. Today we all walk around with video cameras and access to the internet on our phones. Since this evolution in technology began, knowledge of current events has jumped on a rocket ship continuously circling the world. Jenkins talks about how these Survivor spoilers have different ways of acquiring information but they all bring it together and poke holes in one another’s findings in order to come up with some kind of consensus about the show and what is going to happen. Any blog pretty much has the same ability to bring ideas together to form some sort of conclusion. Then of course like others have already mentioned the social networking cites we all use are also forms of knowledge communities. It is where we all go to share information about ourselves, stay connected with considerably more people than we would be able to otherwise, and of course spread the word about events or issues we have interest in. For example, I am a member of Habitat for Humanity and we are having Seminole Shack Show Down coming up in a couple of weeks. In order to spread the word on this event an open facebook has been created so that all the our members can share this event with friends who are not a part of our Habitat Chapter in hopes that they might come out to support us on the day of the event. Included on this page are times and dates of our meetings, the day of the event and where its located, and the purpose of the event and what we are trying to accomplish. If it were not for these Knowledge Communities it would be a lot more difficult and a lot less environmentally friendly to get news across to a large population of people. Another way these knowledge communities influence the world is by adding dynamics to peoples understanding of issues. An example of this is a paper I had to write about organic food verses processed food. In writing this paper I found that it was really hard to find books that we unbiased to base an opinion from. So, instead of basing my opinions strictly off of books that I found from the library and online scholarly databases, I rummaged through a number of internet blogs to find the opinions of people who had less invested on one side of the opinion spectrum. Because I was able to get in contact with these kinds of people my paper was able to be well balanced and very objective, something that would have not been possibly without these knowledge communities.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can derive from Jenkins’ work, knowledge community is the process of complimentary thoughts and knowledge. In our knowledge communities, we work together to come to a conclusion about knowledge rather than to try to figure it out on our own. No matter how much we believe that we know everything, it is impossible. As FSU students, we participate in these communities anytime we participate in discussions in class. I take Religion in Fantasy Literature, also known as the “Harry Potter Class”, and as much as each of us would like to claim that we know the most about Harry Potter, the truth is that we work together to find cues in the books, that not even our professor claims to know every single religious cue in the series.
ReplyDeleteThe EWM major is collaborative in itself, just as a knowledge community. We each will go into one of these fields, probably not all, and if all, not all at the same time. One of these fields will be our specialty and we will use these broad faculties of knowledge to elevate ourselves in our fields. For example, our in-class editing project was a utilization of a knowledge community. Not everyone knew what the others were doing or exactly what they were writing about, but we all worked together in our strengths to pull together a magazine.
In this, we see that the internet gives us instant access to these “complimentary” minds. Using “spoiling” as an example of a knowledge community says a lot about the effect of the internet on these communities because “spoiling” was a term coined for the internet. Forums, such as the one discussed for the Survivor Spoilers, give everyone a much larger and a much broader knowledge community to reach out to. “[…] there are no fixed procedures for what you do with knowledge (53).” Information you need may not be found in a “local” knowledge community. You may have to find someone halfway across the world involved in your knowledge community to access the information that exceeds what you need for survival. Facebook and blogs are knowledge communities. You may post an idea and return to it with a variety of opinions and responses to that idea. These responses are a collaboration of a community to further understand or resolve an issue. I agree with Amanda in that we need to understand these online knowledge communities to learn how to further utilise them whenever we go off and start our careers because it will continue to be the "water cooler conversation".
I thought this piece was extremely relevant to our society and to us as individuals. I do not say this not only because I love to read television spoilers/discussion groups and then see if they end up being accurate, but I also agree that the concept of a knowledge community is an important one to grasp as we progress as a society. While reading, I also noticed the quote that Eric mentioned in his post by Pierre Levy. I think Jenkins included this quote to explain the mechanics of a knowledge community, digital or other. I agree with Sam in that I also see the term knowledge community as meaning “a group of people who communicate and discuss a subject of common interest with each other.” I think that in addition to this definition, I would include that a knowledge community is not a static body. Opinions continually develop and new information can be infused at any time, making it a rather dynamic concept. Also, in order to have a true knowledge community, I think its participants all must have some amount of knowledge or experience in the subject. For example, you wouldn’t have a construction worker participating in a union meeting of nurses. In concordance with this thought, Jenkins mentions the theory of collective intelligence explaining that it is “the ability of virtual communities to leverage the combined expertise of their members” (Jenkins 27)
ReplyDeleteMy first thought of a knowledge community was the old-fashioned book club. A group of people reads a selected piece, then gather and discuss the material. In this informal setting, opinions are evaluated, knowledge on the subject(s) is shared, and stimulating and thought-provoking subjects are contemplated. Before our technological revolution, book clubs consisted of a select group of participants meeting in a specific area discussing a specific book. Once the Internet came around, this changed drastically. Nowadays you can do every step online, from reading the book to answering discussion questions. Blogs and websites are created for the specific purposes of discussing texts, ranging from academic to fiction. In these forums, anyone is able to voice their opinions and share any additional information. This happens to be a prime example of how a knowledge community has become more diverse.
Understanding the meaning of a knowledge community is important to me as a student and composer because I participate in multiple knowledge communities every day with or without noticing. When I post to a blog or discussion board for a homework assignment, I am offering my opinions and additional knowledge of the subject at hand. When I go on FaceBook during the day, I communicate with a distinct group of people and share my opinions and participate in discussions. There are many more examples, but they all come down to the idea that my participation in such communities has become extraordinarily common. As a composer and editor, I can utilize knowledge communities to help enhance my work. For example, there are forums and discussion boards on formatting and themes. This accessibility only has positive effects on my composing and editing because it leads me to produce more cohesive works.
Knowledge communities. Man, I didn’t even know there was a name for these things. The internet serves as one of the greatest gateways for communication for me. I have been part of several online communities in the past some of them great, and others not so great. In Survivor Spoiler, Jenkins elaborates on an underground online community that uses each other’s collective skills and knowledge to hopefully discover facts about the television show Survivor before the public is allowed to know. Jenkins states that knowledge communities are held together by “collective discussion negotiation and development,” which perfectly describes the community of the survivorsucks.com website.
ReplyDeleteOne of my most recent knowledge bases that I have been exploring is a website called reddit.com. Reddit is a knowledge base that allows users to submit and post their own stories or articles on to the website. After a post has been submitted, each user in the community has the decision to either “up-vote” or “down vote” a post. Up-voting allows the post to become more popular on the website causing more users to see the post, down-voting does the exact opposite. Eventually, if a post is incredible enough, it will reach the front page of reddit.com. The users who make the front page are reminiscent of “brains” in survivorsucks.com. The users who make the front page are either literal celebrities posting “Ask me Anything” threads (http://tinyurl.com/65kcm74) or those who have been redditors for a long time, and know what the community wants to read. (http://tinyurl.com/4m3je86)
Jenkins defines a knowledge community as “held together though the mutual production and reciprocal exchange of knowledge,” and I agree with what he has to say. Reddit.com is held together through the collective goal of attaining as much knowledge as possible. Unlike survivorsucks.com, Reddit has a much broader sense of needed knowledge. Reddit.com is broken down into severeal hundred “sub-reddits” which focus on specific topics such as politics or food. Incredibly, there is also a Florida State subreddit, where people can ask and share information about FSU.
The knowledge community of Reddit for me, is indispensable. I usually rely on Reddit for my world and political news because whatever is put on the front page is literally trending on CNN and other news websites, and usually before the big newscasters grab the story. I believe that Reddit is one of the greatest knowledge communities online, because it relies on users to decide what content to display. I think as an EWM major, it is important to understand the resources in which one can attain knowledge. Knowing about knowledge communities can get one into the nitty-gritty information that may not be found in a dictionary or an almanac.
After learning about knowledge communities from Jenkins, I feel like I can see them everywhere. Knowledge communities are important to us as Florida State students because we are one big knowledge community ourself. We have professors and teachers who add most of the knowledge to our school, but we also have students, faculty, and even labor workers who add their own knowledge about the school to our community. We all do our small part by adding our own bits of information to keep the school rolling. As EWM majors, we are our own small faction of FSU with our own knowledge based community. For example everyone in this class knows about rhetorical situation by now; we know the term inside and out. That’s something that our knowledge based community knows. Another example would be when we wrote our newsletters. We each deeply studied one particular literary term, so now collectively we know all those words, but individually we each know only our own word. That’s part of our knowledge community as EWM majors. Knowledge communities are something we are all going to experience some day in the workplace. Wherever we work, not everyone is going to be equipped with the know-how of how to do everything; each employee will know how to do certain things and when they need help or a piece of information they will turn to the other employees for it.
ReplyDeleteReading Sam’s response, I’d like to agree and expand on her point about Harry Potter. When I was younger, I was a HUGE fan of Harry Potter and I was one of the kids who would buy the book the night it went on sale. However, it went way beyond that. I would go on several different websites that were based solely on predicting and speculating on what was going to happen next. The websites would pull on a number of sources from leaked information to J.K. Rowlings interviews where they would analyze and dissect every word she said for clues and hints. The website would also go further into the book, writing short stories based off the characters in the Harry Potter series, inventing their own characters, and even taking excerpts and mistakes from inside the book and making jokes out of them on a spoof page. These online communities of Harry Potter fans used their collective knowledge to come up with predictions and communicate among themselves about Harry Potter. They were the real knowledge based community of Harry Potter fandom.
Another example of knowledge communities that sticks out in my mind would be Wikileaks. Although most of the backlash was focused on it’s leader Julian Assange, the website and it’s leaks were only possible due to its enormous number of followers and hackers who all knew something was up about certain documents, knew how to find them, and knew how to get the world’s attention with them. They used their collective intelligence to hack into government websites, personal email accounts, and even major corporation websites like Visa. And their knowledge community wasn’t based in real time: all of its members were from different parts of the world. It was one hundred percent web-based and got the attention of the entire world in that way.
These “water-cooler” conversations that are now mostly web-based like on facebook and other communication boards are fascinating. Individuals discussing and sharing information about what they know, which in turn leads to a giant knowledge community where everyone knows a bit of something. It’s beautiful. It’s something we should encourage and take notice of because it’s something that can be harnessed for your benefit.
Ok, after reading the first chapter of Jenkins book, I got a huge headache. A headache for the fact that I never really got Survivor; I never was a big fan of the show, for that to be the first thing I read gave me the feeling of "blah". But as far as the Knowledge Community goes, I can really understand that. Knowledge Community is a community that comes out of the sharing of knowledge amongst others. My knowledge community would have to be at this moment NCAA March Madness. For, I am literally constructing my schedule around the viewing of the games online and on television. For, I am online watching the live blogs, tweets and facebook updates as the games go along throughout the month. Last year, I can remember myself in front of my laptop (which is still in the shop) headphones in my ear, a pack of gummy worms and a Pepsi beside me watching the games online. Clicking from one game to another, as I make sure my bracket comes out the way I predicted. As, I go back and forth as to why I selected the team that I did on my bracket with a complete stranger from across the nation. As we run stats pass each other and take into consideration of the one thing that we both knew happens each and every year during the tournament. The art of the "UPSET"! See most people go with the all underdogs, and others just leave the #1 seeds alone. The NCAA March Madness is complete MADNESS. The thing about this knowledge community is that everyone is aware at the same time. We know who is playing who and have already had in our mind of who we want to be the winner of that game. There's no secrecy really but only suspense. Suspense as to will there be an upset, who will lay it all on the line, for its win or go back to classes. This is the thing about my knowledge community is who is going to go to the big dance. As Amanda said, "it is a community of people coming together to discuss something that they all have a genuine interest in and are excited about." That is all my community is about, the exchanging of information about our certain interest to talk about.
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