Week 4 - Lister et al - empowering/disempowering

What do you think of the notion that online community can be empowering/ disempowering?

I think online communities can be empowering to a point. You are in control of what you produce, how you sell yourself and how you communicate. This could give you a sense of power that some people lack in everyday life, for example, a shy and retiring type in real life could go on to be the leader of an online group voicing opinion and fuelling debate. Also, there will always be people online, which may ease the loneliness some people feel in RL, “I found fellowship and comfort in this unlikely medium” (quoted in Rheingold 1995:62) (quoted in Lister, 2003:174) As Lister et al outline, “The reader/audience is able to reply with similar experiences, support, to offer direct interaction”. To feel like part of a group, like you belong, can be very empowering.

Perhaps when this medium becomes disempowering is when it leaks into your real life. Sky News Online's story “revealed how Amy Taylor, 28, was divorcing husband David Pollard after she caught him cheating on her in virtual reality game Second Life.” ... “Because the pair, from Newquay in Cornwall, spent so much time in the virtual world, she saw the online infidelity as every bit as real as if it had happened in real life.” (Watts, 2008) There are countless stories on the internet of people that have become so obsessed by the comfort and power that they find through being different people online, that they have jeopardised relationships, jobs and communication in RL. Personally, I don’t think online communities offer as much validation and happiness as real life, and although it can be argued that they are real because real people are communicating through them, I don’t see how they can be. In Lister et at, Barlow outlines how there is a lack of diversity “of age, ethnicity and social class” (Lister et al, 2003:174) in online communities. For example, people on a web forum discussing the goings on in American soap, The OC, are likely to be young, western females. This way, the group has no “common bonds of shared adversity” (Lister et al, 2003:174) this could render online groups disempowering. Another aspect of online communication that could make users feel less powerful is the distance between the interlocutors. Perhaps not physical distance, but the psychological distance of knowing they are intangible.

Lister et al. (2003) New Media: A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge.
Watts, A (2008) Sky News, Virtual Divorce Cases Set To Soar, http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Second-Life-Virtual-Reality-Divorce-Cases-Will-Increase-Say-Internet-Addiction-Psychologists/Article/200811215151635 [13/02/09]