Tutorial Six: The Internet and Online Communities

The online community I will be investigating is - http://www.facebook.com/

Facebook is an online social networking website which anyone over the age of 13 with an active email account can access. People within this community can communiticate with eachother, list birthdays, invite others to events, upload photos and videos and inform others on what they have been doing.

Facebook provides opportunities for individuals to access information about their friends, upload photos, use games and applications. People contribute to the site by commenting on photos, status and leaving messages on a friends page. Face book provides a Chat accessory so you can talk to a friend like any other instant messaging site. This is as instant as talking to someone face to face.

People choose to contribute to this community as it is a form of communication. It is easy for someone to keep in touch with friends and family. A comment or message is instant and free, therefore sometimes cheaper to keep in touch via facebook. In the past people would write letters and call on the phone. However letters can take weeks to arrive and phonecalls can be very expensive.

Main topics talked about on face book:
The main topics that are talked about on face book are peoples well-being, general gossip and weekend activities. E.g. "Hey how have you been? i havnt seen you in so long, we really should catch up!!"

Ethical issues
Ethical issues need to be taken into consideration as often photos are uploaded without consent and anyone can access then, look at them, even copy them off the internet and edit them. Anybody can upload a photo and they can be viewed by any personthat is 'friends' and you are not able to take that picture down.

Benefits
There are many benefits to using Facebook.

-You are able to keep in touch with family and friends
-Look at photos of friends or family members to see what they have been doing
-Easy way to make conversation as it is much cheaper than calling overseas.
-Face book also enables users to join a range of groups. These groups maybe in relation to religion, culture, politics and can even be used as a way to raise awareness and fund raise.

What does face book lack?
-The ability for an individual to maintain privacy.
-Anybody has the ability to upload photos of any other individual and anyone can see it.
- It is very easy for the online community to be misused.
-People can put personal details about you on you page, this can be dangerous if the page is not secure and someone untrusted finds it. E.g. phone numbers