Has our English class become a community in the end?

Note: The following pictures are a representation of Ms. Middleton's 8:05am English 1101 class and not an actual depiction of the class.




Jose. Classroom . The Jose Vilson. 21 Nov. 2009. http://thejosevilson.com/blog/2008/12/

The above picture symbolizes how the English class was at the beginning of the year. Each class back then seemed as if the teacher was talking at the students as the students pretended to pay attention.



Lesley University. Lesley Graduate Student Classroom. 23 Oct 2007. Flickr. 21 Nov. 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesleyuniversity/1712226634/

This next picture shows the progression to the final state of community in which the class has become. The orientation of students in a circle gives the students a more collective feeling since they can look at each person at the same time. Also, this orientation of students allows for more open communication between the students.




Pacific Audio Visual Institute. Classroom . 23 Oct 2007. Pacific Audio Visual Institute. 21 Nov. 2009. http://www.pacificav.com/classrooms.html

The above picture may be a slight exaggeration of the class environment, but it does serve to represent an overall increase in enthusiasm of the students. As a community, the members display their excitement and how rewarding it can be to be apart of a community.

CRIME in Cyberspace

In order for a crime to be committed, rules and regulations must be in place for the criminal to break. The online community, Facebook, has outlined their rules to be followed on a page titled "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities". On this page, they state that they cannot completely ensure the safety all of the users. As a result, they look to the users themselves to help. Facebook states that the users can help by following the rules outlined, which if everyone participated in doing so, would ensure the safety of the community. This page of terms can be found by clicking the link 'Terms' at the bottom of any page on Facebook. If a user violates any of the specified terms, especially if they continue to violate them, the administrators of Facebook will e-mail or notify that person and tell them that if they do not stop acting against the terms of service, that Facebook has the right and will exert that right to discontinue the offender's service to the online community. If the guilty continue to commit their offense after the notification, Facebook will proceed to delete their membership from the website.

I believe this method of dealing with crime on Facebook is a very fair approach. First of all the person had access to the rules and regulations of the community the whole time that they were a member. Therefore, they can not legitimately claim that the information of the offense was not provided. Also, Facebook notifies the user of their act of crime against the community and gives them time to change their ways, which helps if they did not know what they were doing was wrong. The notification gives them the information of this wrongful act so that they can cure their ignorance and discontinue it for future online activity with the group. The person goes against the warning at their own risk knowing that their service will be discontinued if they repeat the wrongful act again. There is nothing hidden from the user, therefore this action against crime is a fair action to take.

Though I may think this way of punishment is fair, I don't think that it is very effective. I feel that if a person named Joe Smith gets kicked off of Facebook, Joe Smith can create another e-mail address and a new name like Victoria Blum and get a new account on Facebook and Facebook would never know that it is the same person in which they had previously banned. I point this out to demonstrate the one of the main differences in dealing with crime that is committed online and crime that is committed in real life. Depending on how creative a person is, they can almost always get around rules on the Internet. Yet in real life, one goes to court and either gets convicted or does not. There are not many ways to escape punishment in real life convictions in comparison to online convictions. Facebook's manner of dealing with crime may not be very effective in an overall sense, but in dealing with an online community, I do not see any other way of effective punishing the person online.

Is "SuicideGirls" a cybersubculture?

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How Does Facebook Balance Individuality and Conformity?

The virtual community that I participate the most in is Facebook. Because of its popularity, the plethora of users bring massive amounts of diversity to the virtual community. I feel that it balances individuality and conformity very well as it allows the user to stay within their own small group of friends as well as it gives the user the opportunity to join many groups of specified interests where they can feel less individualistic and feel more conforming to the norm of that group. A person first brings to the community their own unique traits and ideas.

Facebook utilizes the fact that people want to feel special and distinctive. Therefore they allow their users to decorate their allotted virtual space in almost anyway they choose. The users are able to personalize their space by decorating it with stickers and quotes and other various information about themselves. For instance, they can choose to identify with a sexual orientation to set themselves apart from those who do not share the same orientation. By sharing certain information, one is defining how others view them and in a sense projects individualism. Projected individualism needs to be protected in such a large and group orientated environment therefore Facebook gives the option to change the restriction of the security settings. Users are able to change privacy settings in which they choose who can or cannot view their personal information. This security of privacy helps protect individualism while the user is participating and becoming apart of the Facebook community.


On Facebook, there are a myriad of groups one can choose to join. In fact, one person can be apart of many groups; the number of groups are not restricted. There are groups, such as the Gay Pride group that posts pictures from all over the world from various gay festivals, gay couples sticking up for their rights, and or anything pertaining to the LBGT community. This expression and openness of a group accumulates incidents from all over and puts then into one place on the web where members and even others can feel apart of the events. They can feel apart of the effort and struggle for gay rights and or they can simply support the members and spread information to others to promote awareness. Awareness helps to educate people about certain events and troubles in the world, in this case, how most states in America have not legalized gay marriage. Hopefully, if more people become aware and comfortable with the gay community, gay people will be able to enjoy and benefit from the equal opportunity to marry the person that they love.


Overall, the most beneficial and efficient community is one that can bring a person into a group of others and still allow that person to retain the characteristics that make that person an individual. From my experience in participating on Facebook, I believe that it is a well-constructed virtual community that fits the requirements of an efficient community as it allows me the ability to become involved and follow convention while at the same time giving me tools to preserve my individualism.

Emotional Connections in Hotel Rwanda

The film focused primarily on the hardships and trails of the Tutsi against the evil Hutu. The main way in which they expounded on this was through the emotional connections made between the audience and Paul. I am not trying to underestimate the mass genocide that was committed by the Hutu against the Tutsi. The only Hutu that was ever seen in a good light was the main character, Paul, who was connected to the Tutsi because of his Tutsi wife. The movie touches briefly on the past conflict between the two races but does not expound upon how the Tutsi were in power before and committed shameful acts against the Hutu because of this power and arrogance.

The filmmakers did a superb job in connecting the audiences’ emotions to the characters and creating hatred toward the Hutu. They could have provoked this emotional connection with extreme graphic violence, yet they refrained from this tactic. Instead, they implied a lot of the violence that occurred during this mass genocide. They never showed someone being killed. In contrast, they showed the roads littered with dead bodies or random pillagers using their machetes on corpses from a distance. Above all, the filmmakers made the most connection to audience through one of the only good Hutu featured in the movie, Paul.

The conflict of the two races seemed to wage war through Paul's character. In the beginning of the movie, he was completely ignorant to the hostilities brewing in the country. Once the Hutu rebels threaten his family, the war becomes an important part in his life. The pivotal point in the movie that really changed Paul's attitude and developed his character was when he saw the road littered with thousands of bodies in early hours of one foggy morning. Ultimately, his character develops from a selfish regular worker to a self-sacrificing individual that does what ever he can to save the Tutsi that are hiding in the hotel.

All of the devices that the filmmakers used to emotionally connect with the audience worked to portray some of the horrors of the genocide that had happened in Rwanda. The reason to connect with the audience is to make more people aware of the horrors that man can commit to their own kin. Hopefully, as more become aware of such atrocities, they will be more likely to help those who are suffering and to deter others from repeating the same horrific actions in the future.

The Religious Community vs. The Gay Community

The chalk reads, "Fat men with megaphone comedy troupe." The phrase is meant to be insulting towards the anti-gay protesters.




The protester's sign reads, "Fear God. Repent. Turn or burn." This sign represents the hatred that the religious protesters have towards the gay community.



The signs from left to right say "Jesus loves me too" and "Homophobia is a Social Disease." This picture demonstrates a more peaceful and less insulting way of conveying to the protesters that it is okay to be a homosexual.



The above picture shows the leader of the protesters calmly talking to the crowd. He is trying to convey his groups views about how their religion does not approve of homosexuality. The way to resolve the conflict between these two communities is through communication and tolerance.



The above picture shows the crowd passively listening and evaluating the protesters speech.

Integrating New Computer Technology Into Community

In our modern society, technology is becoming more and more integrated into our every day lives. Why would it not be possible to use it to progress the development of our real life community? It is not an unfeasible goal. In fact it can be done and more so, it should be done. Technology breaks the time and distance barrier between people as well as it provides people with vast amounts of information just waiting do be explored and retained. In order to open up this portal of opportunity to people, I propose that The Atlanta community would majorly benefit from easier accessibility to the Internet. In other words, I believe getting wireless internet for Atlanta would help build and connect people.

Now that newspapers are becoming more and more obsolete because of the progression of technology, without the Internet, there are no efficient ways of getting information out to the whole community. Yet, if more people were given the chance to have access to the internet, there is more of a probability that they will be up to date with what is occurring around the city. They will be able to be connected to other citizens and thus be able to form organizations. With the formation of organizations, these groups could do more for the community like clean up garbage, volunteer at a food shelter, and helping out in a hospital. The Internet gives people the knowledge about the various opportunities there are around the city to improve the lives of others as well as their own.

Unfortunately, providing Internet service for the whole Atlanta area could be an expensive feat. I would propose that it would be funded by tax payers. Yet if more volunteers were gathered through the providing of free internet service, philanthropic groups would be able to help more people, which would be a good way to spend tax money. The money going into the service would be able to benefit most, if not all, the citizens of Atlanta. Thus it would serve its purpose to help bring together and unite the people of Atlanta.

The importance of Community Service

Are crowds communities?

Is Facebook a community?

Before I can answer whether or not my online group, Facebook, is a community, I feel I must ask one question. Is there a difference between virtual communities and real life communities?

Since society is a precedent for online communities similarities exist between the two. They both have a gathering of people who have common interests as well as an acceptance for those whose views differ from their own. Also they do not require full active participation even though it is more beneficial for the community and the individual to have the individual be completely active in the community. The problem with online communities is that they lack physical interaction which some people believe to be the basis for establishing whether or not a group is indeed a community. To their dismay, I believe that virtual communities can thrive without physical interactions. As technology advances, the ways to virtually communicate advance as well. Now people can write to each other almost instantaneously with the use of instant messaging. Also people can see and speak to one another with the use of a web-cam. These technological developments are helping and somewhat exceeding in breaking the barrier between real life communities and virtual communities.

From a macroscopic view Facebook seems to be just a large online website that has numerous users. There are so many people who use the website that they could not all possibly be friends with one another.Yet when one looks closer and identifies how Facebook hosts so many diverse communities and allows them to become interwoven, the site becomes worthy of the title of a community. When I log into Facebook, I am given the ability to socialize with so many of my friends that I am unable to in real life since they live in various parts of the country and even the world. Also I am given the option to meet new people who may or may not have the same interests as my own. Just having the choice to meet new people and be an active participant makes, in my opinion, Facebook a community.

Is Georgia Tech a community?

The topic of community has been endlessly debated through the centuries and no clear answers as to its definition has been found. Yet, through all of the disarray, broad concepts of community have been located and expounded upon. Communities are filled with people who have things in common, which helps to give them some sense of belonging. Also in the modern age communities now encompass the social interactions of people online and offline. Modern communities will only survive if they manage to bridge the gap between the virtual world and the real one. Georgia Tech is a perfect example of a thriving modern community.

Georgia Tech is a community because it hosts a group of individuals who share the overall goal of getting a degree in higher education. This goal is what has brought every student to campus. They have joined the community of Georgia Tech. To be apart of a community, one does not need to be always actively participating. Instead they only need to support the overall goal of the community. They need to have some common interests, while having tolerance and respect for those who have different passions. As the community grows, like it has at Georgia Tech, sub-communities will form. Sub-communities are numerous around campus and give people places to focus on certain interests and thrive with others who share those same interests.
By participating in sub-communities, students indirectly participate in the community of Georgia Tech.

An interesting thing about Georgia Tech's community is that it weaves together virtual and real life aspects of community. The main virtual engine of communication on campus is Facebook. On Facebook, students are able to communicate about real life occurrences and activities such as football games, community service projects, music, and even tough homework assignments. When they go off-line they leave with more opinions and knowledge of the happenings around them. They go into the real life with a strengthened ability to converse with fellow students and even experience some of the events talked about on-line. Georgia Tech's community grows and flourishes as it continues to connect diverse people through various modules.