Mainstream media’s focus on profit drives their actions.  The profit motives encourage media consolidation, increased focus on individual consumerism, mindless entertainment, and sensationalist journalism.  Each of these has its own adverse effects on community.

Media consolidation is the slow and steady trend toward monopolization of media.  As the major media companies consolidate, fewer voices are heard.  The major media companies all have one major characteristic in common – they exist to make a profit for their shareholders.  That means that policies that support big business support the major media companies.  Since the major media companies have a vested interest in issues related to big business, they are able to manipulate the type of media exposure that these issues receive.  Even if an issue is not in the best interests of the majority of the public, they are likely to receive an overwhelming number of media messages in support of the issue because the major media will air those views while suppressing competing views.  By limiting the available dialogue on issues of importance to the general public, the major media companies cripple community.  Communities need a free flow of information in order to function.  Media consolidation limits information flow.

The commercial nature of the mainstream media requires that the major media companies seek out new sources of revenue.  One major source of revenue is advertisers.  The more ads that a company can squeeze between their programming, the more money they can make.  Shows become shorter – an average hour-long TV program is actually only 40 minutes of show and 20 minutes of commercials (just watch some TV shows on DVD if you need proof).  The advertisers also get to dictate which programs get made.  The major TV networks don’t decide what content to air based on what they think the audience will watch; they decide what to air based on what the advertisers are willing to spend advertising dollars on.  That is why there are so many duplicate shows on TV (e.g. SuperNanny vs Nanny 911).  Once a TV company sees that a show is doing well on one network, they replicate it because they know they can sell it to advertisers.  The increased presence of advertising on TV has created a situation where people believe they need to have the latest greatest gadget in order to find happiness.  They believe this because this is the message constantly being given to them by the advertisers and the media companies.  It is not uncommon for advertisers to actually negotiate specific story lines featuring their product in their contract (just think Nissan Versa in Heroes on NBC).  Often the story line shows how the new gadget serves to make a character happy.  This increased focus on consumerism serves to detach people from communities.  People think that they can only find happiness through material possessions.  Possessions require money.  People work more to earn more money to buy the latest gadget leaving less time to participate in their community.  Community diminishes.

Mindless entertainment has become the norm.  Reality TV has popped up everywhere and the concept behind it has fueled the development of sites such as YouTube.  The idea behind reality TV has been around for a long time.  It started with TV game shows, moved to shows such as America’s Funniest Home Videos, and then, with MTV’s The Real World, the new structured, planned “reality” TV shows began to hit the airwaves.  Along with the rise of reality TV, educational shows for children began to disappear.  Watching Saturday morning cartoons today involves half-hour episodes of shows like Yu-Gi-Oh or Brats.  Yu-Gi-Oh provides about 3 minutes of actual action drawn out to cover about 15 minutes of the 30 minute program.  The other 15 minutes is filled with advertisements aimed at children.  Brats provides a little more content but doesn’t really have any educational value.  A few decades ago, shows like Duck Tales and Thunder Cats managed to pack some educational content into the show (expertly disguised as entertainment) and there were shows like The Electric Company that children loved to watch that taught all sorts of things.  The dumbing down of television means that people sit and watch without engaging their mind.  The problem here is that people zone out or become so involved in watching other people’s lives that they don’t go out and live their own.  Why seek out social connections in your own neighborhood when the lives on Big Brother come into your home and are more interesting and easy than a life that one can make for themself?  By shutting off people’s minds, these forms of media discourage social involvement and limit people’s interaction in community affairs.

Sensationalist journalism is an extension of the mindless programming problem.  Television news started the problem.  Major media companies noticed that TV news wasn’t making the same kind of money that other programming was.  They began to insist that these programs produce revenue and TV news has to change to be more like the entertainment programs in order to draw the advertisers.  It began with an increased focus on blood and sex.  The “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality started to pull the focus of the news from important social and political issues to more sensational headlines that would draw the curious.  This has moved on now to a fixation on celebrity and scandal as the lifeblood of the major media news organizations.  This has also spilled into print journalism because the major media organizations have bought up most of the major print news sources and required them to turn a profit or be shut down.  Other news organizations have had to follow suit or lose readers.  It is sad that all news today is more sensational than the stories found in The Enquirer thirty years ago.  The removal of substantive journalism from mainstream media means that many people are never acquainted with the important issues facing them in today’s society.  They are uninformed and vote based on what the major media tells them to do.  Third party candidates stand no chance in Presidential politics because the major media doesn’t cover their election bids (except as footnotes, fluff pieces, or as a threat to a major candidate’s chances).  The lack of real news coverage in the mainstream media has destroyed the “public sphere” by removing any possibility of open public discourse on the issues facing the populace.  The lack of a public sphere in which to discuss and resolve issues hurts people’s community involvement by making them feel that they can’t make a difference.  Additionally, the focus on blood and violence on the part of the mainstream news media instills a sense of distrust for one’s neighbor in the populace.  This mistrust, where the neighbor is perceived as a child molester, rapist, or murderer, serves to isolate individuals from those around them preventing the creation of community.

Each of these aspects of mainstream media serves to destroy community in its own way and I’m sure I haven’t touched on all the aspects that threaten community or all the ways these aspects hurt community.  There are many threats to community posed by the mainstream media’s commercial nature that our society doesn’t see simply because they aren’t talked about in the mainstream media.  That is why community media and grassroots organization are so important.  Through the use of community media and grassroots movements, the public can be informed and educated about the significant bias of the mainstream media and, by being informed, that public can hopefully change what has happened to the “public” airwaves.

I think there are a couple of key policy issues facing communities today: net neutrality, threats to cable franchise fees, media deregulation, and campaign finance.

Net neutrality affects communities because it affects the free flow of information on the Internet.  The major telecoms want to have control over what content is transmitted over their systems.  This is something like a telephone company wanting to control what we can say in our telephone conversation.  If the telecoms succeed in gaining control over information transmitted over their networks, they can charge fees for access to content, and limit transmission speeds for data that doesn’t support their interests.  This limits the free flow of information and ideas essential to the “public sphere”.  Communities rely on freely flowing information in order to assemble and accomplish their goals.  Limiting this will severely limit the effectiveness of community organizations to have their viewpoints heard and considered.

Threats to cable franchise fees would devastate many of the community media organizations that exist today.  A large amount of the funding for public access television comes from franchise fees and, in many communities, this is the only form of community media that exists.  Cable companies argue that the Internet provides the access to media distribution that the public access channels were supposed to provide and that the public access channels and their funding are no longer necessary.  This argument neglects the fact that many of the people served by public access and community media stations do not have consistent access to the Internet (if they have access at all).

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed some of the regulation that kept the mainstream media representative of the public.  The Act allowed major media companies to consolidate.  Ultimately it reduced competition and removed many of the minority owned media companies from the market altogether.  The free market ultimately favors monopolization and monopolization in the media reduces that chances for public discourse and community formation.  The major media companies would love to have more of the regulations surrounding their business removed so that they can further their choke-hold on the media diet in America.  Further deregulation would be a disaster for communities because it would further reduce the opportunities for community formation, interaction, and dissemination of information.

Finally, I think that campaign finance is a major policy issue facing communities today.  The problems mentioned above stem from government policies.  Deregulation, destruction of net neutrality, and the repeal of cable franchise fees are all decisions that would be made by legislators.  Campaign finance rules provide too much influence to big business.  When it comes to media issues, the big businesses are major media companies.  These companies provide substantial funding to politicians in order to put them in office.  In return, the expect that the politician will support their position on any issues that concern them.  In a sense, the major media companies are buying the government decisions that will support their business interests.  This has serious consequences for communities.  When the people elect officials because the media tells them to (which is how all politicians win elections today) and those politicians feel indebted to the media companies, there is little chance that the public will win on issues where the public interest differs from media company interests.  If the media companies constantly win, they can suppress any community activities they feel run contrary to their profit base.  Any community activity that pulls people away from the TV, Movies, Radio, etc. for real community interaction will eventually hit media companies’ bottom line if it catches on with enough people.  Therefore, it is in the media companies’ best interests to prevent the formation of strong communities.  They may not have thought it out that far but they effectively do this by treating community media as their competition and lobbying politicians to favor mainstream media over public and community media.  Campaign finance reform could return the power to the people and prevent the major media companies from dictating policy that hurts community.  That is why I think that campaign finance is a major policy issue facing communities today.

There are communication and information technologies that inherently build community.  I think many community media ventures serve to build community but these are not necessarily technologies. 

I really think that the Internet, in its current unregulated form, creates community. 

One of the main uses of the Internet today is connection peer-to-peer for the sharing of information.  This new “public sphere” has revived information exchange for the middle and upper classes.  The problem with the Internet is that the lower class is not well represented.  Through community media programs, there are opportunities for poor and uneducated people to join the online discourse but there are financial barriers that these programs must overcome in order to continue operating and there are educational barriers to be overcome to facilitate the use of technology by the underprivileged. 

So, while community creation is easy on the net it is not equally accessible. 

I think the most useful Internet technology for creating community is the blog.  A blog allows for easy distribution of community information, access by all members in the community, coordination of live community events, community social interaction in a time-delayed online medium allowing everyone access regardless of work/school schedule.  This type of information repository and information distribution medium allows not only for textual announcements to be posted about community events but also for video of those events and it allows each community member to interact and participate.  With the busy schedules that most people have today, the ability to join in on community interactions at any time of the day allows more people to be a part of the community.  I think blogs could easily be used to facilitate community on the local level through discussion among community members and coordination of both online and offline events that where community members can meet in real time.

I’ve never been very active in any type of community.  I’m not a “joiner”.  I’m much more of a loner.  That said, I think that World of Warcraft is an extremely viable community. 

I don’t actually use it myself.  I know I wouldn’t devote enough time to it for me to spend money on it. Despite that, WoW is an amazing environment.  The people who use it join together to tell the story of the “World”.  Each individual is represented by an avatar that inhabits a virtual space (the geographical location of most community definitions).  People meet and make friends.  They discuss.  They join together to accomplish goals. 

WoW is centered around a fantasy world framework but other 3D virtual communities exist.  Second Life is similar but it is set in a virtual representation of real life (sort of).   People gather and discuss.  Even congress has met in Second Life. 

The point of these virtual worlds is that they make the online community experience more real by using the 3D avatars.  Yes, anyone can look like anything but most people use people shaped avatars.  As the technology becomes more realistic, it becomes increasingly possible for facial expression and body language to play a role in these virtual interactions.  The 3D virtual worlds allow people who are physically distant to interact on a personal level as though they were living in the same neighborhood.  It brings the world within an accessible distance and the community associations that form are just as dynamic and meaningful as those made offline.

For anyone who wants to see what a virtual world could be, I recommend Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.  His description of the Metaverse is a great look at what platforms like Second Life could become.

Online learning is very different from traditional classroom learning.  In the past, online learning has been criticized because it was thought to be less rigorous and because there was concern over whether the student was really doing the work. 

Well, things have changed. 

Online learning is actually more rigorous than offline learning.  In this framework everyone is required to participate in the discussions and they need to provide well thought out answers and be able to respond to questions.  They also need to be reading others’ postings and responding to them.  This is very time consuming. 

On top of that, there is a lot of reading to be done.  In a traditional classroom, I typically would go to the lecture and ignore the textbook.  I admit it.  I still got A’s and B’s.  I hardly took part in classroom discussions and I spent little time at night working on assignments.  With the online format, I am constantly checking to see if there is something new to respond to in the discussions.  I’m always reading for class and the exams, rather than being multiple choice questionnaires, are full length papers or multimedia presentations.  

A paper or presentation is much better at demonstrating mastery of material than a multiple choice exam.  So, as far as educational value is concerned, I’d say give the points to online learning.  As for making sure that the student is the one doing the work, traditional educational settings have the same problem.  In the online framework we are using, there is enough live interaction for everyone to be familiar with everyone else.  And, with the discussion questions, it is easy to recognize someone’s writing style and “voice”.  So, having someone else do the work for you is actually pretty hard in this online environment. 

Now, the online educational experience does lack something that a traditional university offers an abundance of.  Partying.  Since the beginning of my online educational experience, I haven’t been to a single party with other students.  All that social networking through a glass of beer is missing from my educational experience.  OK, seriously, though, there is a bit of socialization that is missing.  College students learn as much from socializing with their peers and joining in with clubs and other extracurricular activities as they do from their classes.  That is missing here.  The thing is, that type of interaction should be available in the community.  A college student should be able to take rigorous classes online and participate in social activities in their community. 

Still, I will miss all the fraternity parties that I . . . wait a minute. . . I never went to them when I DID go to a traditional university.  I was too busy working a full time job to pay tuition to have time for frat parties.  Anyway, I think online is the way to go (at least for me).

So, I’ve never really subscribed to a blog before.  I never really found one that was compelling and interesting. Then again, I never really looked.  I’m not the most outgoing person.  I get up, go to work, come home, watch some TV, read a book (though both of these have been replaced with homework for now), go to bed.  My internet time has been limited and I’ve never really found stuff online that I absolutely HAD to check daily.  Maybe I just didn’t know where to look?  I’ve learned a lot about the Internet from the classes that I’m taking.  Last semester, I subscribed to my first podcast to see what they’re all about.  I searched for one that would be interesting to me and found Broadway Bullet.  I listened to a few episodes and then stopped.  I have other things I’d rather do with my time.  It was interesting but not interesting enough to keep me listening.  This is what happens to all my subscriptions.  If it comes at me regularly, I ignore it.  If I seek it out it’s interesting.  We’ll have to see what happens now that I’ve subscribed to my first vlog.  I looked at a couple of episodes first and it seems compelling.  I subscribed to Rocketboom.  I just don’t know where I’m going to fit this into my day.  I listen to my audiobooks while going to and from work. Maybe I’ll have to throw in a vlog daily during my commute too?  (I take the train.  Didn’t want you to think I’d be watching while driving.  Though, in some commutes that would be entirely possible.)  Anyway, are blogs becoming more relevant?  Will vlogs take over from blogs?  I know I’m dissatisfied with the mainstream news.  Maybe Rocketboom will be the answer to my prayers.  If not, I can always return to books about utopia . . .

www.rocketboom.com

OK. So I’m far from an expert on blogging.  In fact, if it weren’t for the classes I’ve been taking, I probably wouldn’t have read or written a blog for many years to come (if ever). 

That said, I was asked to find a blog about my community . . . and I couldn’t.  At least, I couldn’t find a blog specifically about my community of Cedar-Riverside in Minneapolis.  This is sad but not surprising to me.  I did find a blog about Minneapolis but it appears that it is written by only six people. 

The motivation to look for a community blog came about because our class was looking at a blog for Lowell, MA.  That blog had many posts with many sections where people could discuss issues of concern to the community. 

The Minneapolis blog I found is part of Metblogs.com, which has a mission – they want to bring the type of locally focused coverage that old newspapers had back to the community.  There is some community involvement on the blog.  People post replies but they aren’t substantial replies.  The blog seems more focused on putting information out there than on creating a public dialogue about the subjects.  And I’ve never seen any advertising on the street that the blog exists. 

For a community blog to truly be a source of discussion about community issues, the community needs to know it exists.  As time goes by, I can see blogs becoming places of social discourse within communities but I don’t think we’re quite there yet.

The biggest problem that I see with this blog is that there is no organization to the information.  The posts could be separated by subject so that one can search for specific content.  Instead, they just have politics, community events, restaurant reviews, and the arts all mixed together on the same page.  This lack of organization makes the blog less interesting because one never knows what the next post will be about.  If one is looking for politics, a restaurant review is not likely to hold their interest and bring them into the conversation.

Here’s the link if you’re interested: http://minneapolis.metblogs.com/

In doing my readings for another class, I ran across the Twa Zanmi (Three Friends) Project.  The project is directed by Susan Foley, Senior Research Associate with The University of Massachusetts at Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion.

The Twa Zanmi Project is using community-directed television to bring together the Haitian immigrant community in Boston for the purpose of addressing mental health issues associated with immigration.

The project is creating a telenovella program about three recent Haitian immigrants.  The project description states “It will show feelings of isolation, separation from friends and family, and the struggle to develop a new identity in a new community.”

Mental health issues are a taboo issue in the Haitian immigrant community.  This project is designed to open a dialogue within the community about this subject.  The creators want the telenovella to be relateable for the people in the community.  They want people to see that this could be anyone in their community.  With the stigma about this issue, they wanted a medium that would be able to reach the audience without their having to identify themselves as having these mental health issues.

The show will be aired in Creole on the radio, the web, and on CD/DVD.

Issues such as Depression are never talked about in the community.  It is expected that people will have “problems in their head” that they need to deal with.  This attitude precludes the identification of the symptoms of things like depression.  By creating a dialogue about the subject within the community, the program can help to reduce the stigma and help the people suffering with mental health issues to live happier more fulfilled lives.

Links:

One of the groups working on this project is the Haitian American Public Health Initiative

Here’s a video where some people working on the project talk about it: http://newroutes.org/node/10014

Some information about the project: http://newroutes.org/projects/twazanmi

More information about the project: http://www.communityinclusion.org/project.php?project_id=53

Mainstream media without commercials bringing important information about the local community to the local community?  Has anyone ever seen this before? 

 I have. 

I’m talking about KCRG-TV9 the local ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  For the past day, I’ve been streaming a live feed of their broadcast on my computer.  There is major flooding in Eastern Iowa – Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Coralville, Columbus Junction, and more are all slowly sinking under the Cedar and Iowa Rivers.  The broadcast team at KCRG has been broadcasting live updates on the flooding nonstop throughout the crisis.  They have been sending their reporters around the area to find out what’s happening.  They even bring their producers in on the production aspects during a crisis.  The production quality of KCRG broadcasts does fall slightly during crises of this nature because the station brings information to the screen as soon as it is available. 

I used to live in Iowa City/Coralville, Iowa and I’ve been paying attention because I still have family in that area.  From my time there, I knew that during a crisis, KCRG preempts the national ABC programming in favor of local programming of import to the area.  They provide quality information quickly and accurately.  This is a breath of fresh air when compared with KFXA’s normal response to a crisis.  I remember that when I lived in Coralville, a tornado went through Iowa City.  KCRG let us know it was coming and suspended normal programming until the crisis had passed.  KFXA broke in during commercial breaks and ran a tornado warning at the bottom of the screen.  KFXA continued to run normal programming during that crisis. 

KCRG has a refreshing sense of commitment and responsibility for the community that they serve.  The reporters are relatable and are clearly members of the Eastern Iowa community.  During a crisis, they bring common sense to the screen and provide a cool head and sensible advice to help the community deal with the extraordinary conditions.  I have always been a loyal NBC viewer because of the NBC station in Washington, D.C. where I grew up.  When I moved to Iowa City/Coralville, KCRG was simply the best broadcast network in the area that I switched to ABC there.  I admire the commitment KCRG has to Eastern Iowa and feel that this particular affiliate transcends many of the negative aspects associated with mainstream media.  For this affiliate, public safety in Eastern Iowa is more important than the revenue lost from advertisers when a crisis is facing the community. 

Thank you, KCRG for the great job that you do.

Abstract

An examination of sociological texts about community reveals many different definitions of the term.  When conducting social research, the approach to a study and its results are influenced by which definition a researcher chooses.  This paper synthesizes, from some of the definitions currently available, a broadly applicable definition of community suitable for use in social research.  Through a review of other works attempting to define community, this paper shows that current definitions of community are unsuitable because they narrow their focus to individual interactions rather than examining community through the interaction of groups.  A new definition of community is provided that focuses on group interaction within society and will allow better analysis of community both today and in the future.

Defining Community

            Traditionally, the basic concept used to define community has focused on individuals working together toward a common goal.  This approach to defining community makes the mistake of focusing on the individual social units formed by the interaction of individuals rather than focusing on the social interaction that takes place between the groups or organizations.  According to R.E. Park, “Not people, but institutions, are final and decisive in distinguishing the community from other social constellations.”  (1952, p. 66) Community only develops through the interaction of the various social organizations, or institutions, to which individuals belong.  Each individual person maintains membership in various social organizations whether they be personal relationships such as family or friends or business interactions such as visiting the grocery store or riding the bus.  The individuals involved in these actions do not themselves form community by their physical presence in these social organizations.  The organizations will exist with or without the individual.  Community is formed through the interaction of these organizations with the individual representatives of other organizations.  The mother riding the bus is a representative of the familial organization and the community of bus riders is formed when individuals such as the mother ride the bus.

            Most classical definitions of community contain the assumption that geography is a required element in the creation of community.  Bates & Bacon observe:

          …the tendency to define the community as a physical area with identifiable geographic boundaries.  This orientation precludes consideration of the essentially social nature of the community. (1972) 

The social nature of community requires that any new form of social interaction necessarily has the potential to be a conduit for the formation of community.  With the advent of computer technology, many new avenues for communication have arrived and these computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies offer new ways for people to interact and develop community interactions.   As observed by Bernard,

The distribution of people in dispersed social systems is not only spatial but mental. Some people are in a planetary community; some are in a national community; still others are in a community bounded by their limited interests. The bodies of people might be in one spatial area, but not their social worlds. The concept of locale has little meaning in this context. (1973, p. 183)

            While community need not have a geographic component to exist, there are some basic elements that need to be present for community to develop.  The basic building blocks for community were well laid out by Quentin Jones in his definition of a virtual settlement.  Jones states that a virtual settlement will require at least:

(1) a minimum level of interactivity; (2) a variety of communicators; (3) a minimum level of sustained membership; and (4) a virtual common-public-space where a significant portion of interactive group-CMCs occur. (1997)

These basic criteria can be expanded from virtual settlements to form a basic set of requirements for community in general.  First, there must be a certain level of interaction between the individual representatives of different social groups before community can develop.  Second, there must be input from a variety of sources.  Third, there needs to be sustained contact between the interacting groups.  Finally, there needs to be a public “space “ where the necessary interaction can take place.  This space could be virtual or physical.  The only requirement is that spaces for interaction exist.

            Social groups are formed by people with a common interest be it familial ties or the desire to collect stamps.  Within these groups, the social interaction that occurs is focused on the satisfaction of those mutual goals.  The cooperation inherent in these groups does not form community.  Bates and Bacon explain that

…the basic social processes which give a distinctive character to the community as a social entity – setting it apart as a type of social structure from groups and organizations – are the processes of conflict and competition, not the processes of cooperation and mutual aid. (1972)

The interactions between the individual representatives of different social organizations bring the type of meaningful interaction that allows for compromise and the development of community.

            The classical definitions of community tend to focus on the individual person as the source of community.  The idea is that the individual forms community through the connections that they form with others in their day-to-day existence.  The definitions are naturally limited to the geography that said individual occupies.  These definitions are short sighted and neglect the fundamental nature of community itself.  Any true and lasting definition of community needs to be flexible enough that the introduction of new technology and the opportunity for new types of social interaction does not make it obsolete.  A definition of community as the interaction of social organizations through individuals rather than as the interaction of individuals themselves  changes community from a narrow concept describing individual interactions into a concept broad enough to be useful in the analysis of society.

References

Bates F.L. & Bacon L. (1972, March). The Community as a Social System. Social Forces, 50 (3), 371-379. Retrieved June 8, 2008 from JSTOR database at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577041

Bernard, J.S. (1973). The Sociology of Community. Glenview, Il. Scott Foresman.

Jones, Q. (1997). Virtual-Communities, Virtual Settlements & Cyber-Archaeology: A Theoretical Outline. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 3 (3). Retrieved June 9, 2008 from Blackwell Synergy website: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00075.x

Park, R.E. (1952). Human Communities. Glencoe, Il.: Free Press.