The essay Virtual Communities: Cyberhood vs. Neighborhood by John Perry Barlow discusses the different aspects of community in the virtual world and the real world. The experience through our class assignment, to create and maintain a weekly blog adds to some of his ideas.
Barlow’s search for community led him to cyber space and back. Throughout his experience he realizes the lack of personality cyberspace contains. The “prana” is what makes a community diverse and is the main thing that cyberspace is lacking. Since our class interacts on a personal level for fifty minutes four times a week, prana exists. We know how each other sound, act, talk, and can recognize specific mannerisms that make us who we are.
When we made our blogs, it gave our class an additional form of communication, which opened the opportunity to further our community and relationships. The diversity contained in each blog added to the diversity within our class and allowed us to understand our classmates better. The level of understanding varied with the blogs – ranging from sports to reviews to random thoughts as did our class vary opinions and ideas.
I enjoyed the opportunity to write my own blog and be creative with what I wrote. I chose to stick with random things since I enjoy sharing experiences and situations which rarely share a common theme. Although it was sometimes a burden to think of something to write, I enjoyed writing my blog and reading the blogs of my peers.
