What Defines a Community?

I am an anthropologist conducting research on video sharing on YouTube and in the video blogging community.

See: http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/

Many people still argue about what a community is, and whether online groups can be communities. In asking people at SouthTube whether YouTube is a community, people provided answers that I found very interesting. If you watch closely you will see many different definitions in words and images. What do you think defines a community? Which criteria do you find most persuasive?

This footage was taken at the SouthTube meeting in Georgia on September 22-23, 2007. For more information on SouthTube see:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SouthTubeGathering

Please note that this is a research site and that comments posted to the site may be used in research. For more information about the study and how posted comments are used in research please see:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=A...

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• AnthroVlog
• YouTube
• meetup
• meet-up
• gathering
• SouthTube
• community

[Shikanoss]

Dommage je comprends que dalle il faut que je m'y mette moi a l'anglais !!!

[AnthroVlog]

Il serait bon d'avoir cette traduction.

[VaZZim]

is very small..

[dumalucky]

For me? a community is a force that can stand up to the corrupt US 'Bush' Government and the corrupt federal bank and Destroy those evil bastards.? So theres no community in this world? Viva youtube

[Bolinas1971]

cement head

[REALGREYBLUE]

How come the video footage I have which was taken at same time even has everyone saying diffrent things from yours? It's as if I was on a diffrent planet. :)

[doormaker2]

Web sites aren't communities but they are locations where communities can arise. It's so easy to move, online communities tend to become very homogenous though. It takes a lot of effort to keep it from smothering itself in orthodoxy.

[BILLGETSSTRONG]

It's neither differences, nor sameness.

It's just common interests. In olden times it was simply about safety. That was the common interest at that point in time.

[brazensteel]

In a way you are right. Certainly it's in context. If aliens invade earth then all of a sudden just being human is a "sameness" that can bind a community. If half the human population all of a sudden lost one arm then sameness would be drawn along those lines to a degree.

Certainly with humans, such things as race, intelligence, ethnicity, nationality are very powerful biological sameness groupings.

The point is that sameness has more power then difference, whatever that sameness is.

[idliketobehappy]

because difference is the opposite of sameness. if even 'degree of difference' could be categorized as being shared and therefore same, then ANYTHING could be called an aspect of 'sameness,' and therefore any group of people could, under your suggested terminology, be called a community. that would nullify the point because it would make 'the act of defining a community' pointless. if everything's dark, there's no point in making the word 'dark' as opposed to light, or 'not dark'.

[brazensteel]

How does it nullify the point when you just stated that the community shares something that is the same?

Seriously...

[idliketobehappy]

that can be turned on its head, because arguably you could say everyone shares the same 'the degree of difference'. this possibility completely nullifies the point. therefore sameness does not seem to serve as an adequate criterion.

[BanjoBoog]

Check out the cyberjamclub

[hankmacgregor]

Check out the channel CyberjamClub