I think now more than ever Facebook offers a huge scope for creating communities.
My personal Facebook account follows along the same line as Westlake discusses when she states that the "online world of Facebook reflects the local, “on ground” life of its specific users" (Westlake 2008 p. 23). My account is made up of friends I have met face to face, its a little community of people in my life.
Facebook today also allows users to create pages based on common interests and themes such as
"Local Business or Place", "Company Organization or Institution", "Brand or Product", "Artist, Band or Public Figure", "Entertainment", or "Cause or Community" (Create a Page 2011) so the commonality that people form communities around no longer needs to mimic outside social circles and personal relationships. I imaging this type of pigeonholing of interests makes good business sense - as a way of collecting and packaging data for resale, but it still does allow communities to form while it performs this function.
My personal Facebook account follows along the same line as Westlake discusses when she states that the "online world of Facebook reflects the local, “on ground” life of its specific users" (Westlake 2008 p. 23). My account is made up of friends I have met face to face, its a little community of people in my life.
Facebook today also allows users to create pages based on common interests and themes such as
"Local Business or Place", "Company Organization or Institution", "Brand or Product", "Artist, Band or Public Figure", "Entertainment", or "Cause or Community" (Create a Page 2011) so the commonality that people form communities around no longer needs to mimic outside social circles and personal relationships. I imaging this type of pigeonholing of interests makes good business sense - as a way of collecting and packaging data for resale, but it still does allow communities to form while it performs this function.
Create a Page. 2011. http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?ref_id=20531316728 (accessed 15/11/11).
Westlake, E. J. 2008. Friend Me if You Facebook Generation Y and Performative Surveillance. Project Muse 52 (4): 21-40. https://auth.lis.curtin.edu.au/cgi-bin/auth-ng/walkin.cgi?url=http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/the_drama_review/v052/52.4.westlake.pdf (accessed 14/11/11).
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