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