Internet Culture
By Nykita Paroz
Throughout these past weeks we have discovered and explored the significant presence that social media has in our everyday lives: and how it has advances how and in what ways, we interact with people across the world. For members who have dispersed from their place of origin, online social networks provide a way to communicate, reflect and narrate their self and community identity.
Social media networks have continued to emphasize the importance of staying connected with family, friends and participate with groups of similar interests or values. When we interact with the cyber world in this way, it no longer remains a mundane space but becomes a place of"collective memory and history" (Ma Mung, 2005. p 35) that provides a sense of "oneness". Social media assists in maintaining links, whether they be real or imagined (Kuttainen, 2015) between our virtual based communities (those that we know anonymously) and those offline (people) personal networks we try to stay in contact with.
As we have discussed previously, narratives are important in the way we organize events in space and place (Kuttainen, 2015), social media has become a way for diasporas to share their new heritage while maintaining a connection/ relationship to the people and places from their homeland. The ways in which social media provides these opportunities can be seen through the relationship statuses we construct, and the sharing of links, images and videos. Furthermore, the way most social media networks allow you to create a digital profile comprised of different personality components. Additionally, how social media networks allow their members to communicate through different languages.
Communication is an important key in establishing relationships that allow us to construct and maintain a self and community identity. Social media has inevitably become a seemingly effective and faster way of achieving this.
References:
Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place: People Networks. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Ma Mung, E. (2005). Diaspora, spatiality, identities. [Class readings]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Image:
Shutterstock: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-2949631/stock-photo-computer-keyboard-with-a-world-map.html
As you said, communication is key in establishing relationships that allow us to construct and maintain a self and community identity. This is very true as Diasporas are able to separate themselves from the host country into their own organisation through building this identity for themselves. They do this through the communication of narrative, myth, community memorialisation that map the journeys from one place to another in history (Kuttainen, 2015). By doing this they are able to transform a once strange and foreign space into something more of a familiar place. For example, Chinatowns are a place transformed to accommodate Chinese and Han culture and people. Many places such as these were formed to enclave certain people and culture. This just goes to show how powerful communication can be.
ReplyDeleteReferences:
Kuttainen, V. (2015). BA1002: Our space: networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 7: people networks. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au