Rozbeh Sororian
New Media

Forums

Being able to input your own information into a type of community or society—whether right or wrong information—is better than not having any input at all. The reason for this is because of networked technologies, which is described by Douglass Rushkoff as a way for people to communicate without hierarchy and with more support for large-scale opinion. Forums are a great example of Rushkoff’s networking concept by showing the ability to share, challenge, and debate ideas in a controlled environment. Essentially everything will balance itself out and a group or community will eventually be able to come to a consensus about a topic of interest.
One type of community for example would be the automotive community. There are thousands of internet forums dedicated to further education of cars—how they work, how long they last, what models are best, what companies should sponsor us, etc. There are people all around the world that declare cars a first hobby, and infatuated with anything that has to do with the automotive culture. I know because I am one of them. The forum that each person decides to join represents the specific type of knowledge they want to gain. Thus, someone with a Honda s2000 would join a forum called www.s2ki.com, which stands for s2k international. Someone who has a civic could join the forum www.honda-tech .com, which is a site that is dedicated to people who are in search of specific information for their Honda vehicles no matter what model or year the car is. These forums act as a controlled environment, or bureaucracy, for people and their specific cars. The intuition we have upon entering forums such as these is to ask questions as well as give our own input about things we know and do not know about a specific automotive community.
The automotive community that I am currently with is www.my350z.com, which allows me to login and immediately search through different subsections of the forums such as modifications, general 350z talk, the lounge(non 350z talk), and even enter a large chat room with the forum members. The forum usually consists of one administrator and several other moderators in order to keep up with the forum. The reason I enjoy being part of a community such as this is because the only sense of hierarchy obvious to me would be the efforts of the specific administrators and moderators to make sure the forum is running properly and that no body is abusing it. Thus, they never once troubled me for being a “newbie” when I first joined and seem to respect everyone’s contribution to the forum equally. Also, this allows me to talk to people in other states, even other countries, at different times and about different things with the expectation of receiving ideas and opinions beneficial to me. This is a form of Rushkoff’s networking concept as people’s ideas from different places interact in order to further educate a specific community(in this case the automotive community).
The specific ways someone can interact with other members on my350z.com is either through “Private Messaging” a member, which is basically an e-mail specifically through the forum, or by manually looking a member up in the member archives section of the forum. The long-term goal though, is to have people from different automotive communities and provide positive feed back and opinions rather than harsh and violent ones. At this time, different communities and societies in general all across the world are at war because one group thinks that they are better than the other, creating a social hierarchy. According to Rushkoff’s concept, the differences and disputes will eventually balance themselves out (by beginning at a very small scale of course). For example, although the goal for me is to attain and receive information about a specific automobile, the administrator’s goal is to get enthusiasts from other communities to join and provide the same positive attitude and feedback minus any hint of social hierarchy. Features such as the site “Wiki” allow anyone that is a member to contribute any knowledge on specific car parts, information, installation, or tutorials for everyone to see. If something is wrong, then another member can go in and correct it, thus another example of balancing out.
The reason that forums are such a good way to build great communities is because it is through the internet. The ability for someone across the world to get an instant response to a problem or idea from 50 different members is amazing. The beauty of it is that there is no limit to someone’s opinions or ideas, and they can be built upon day after day, week after week, by member after member. Networked technologies such as forums allow for more “expression” over “suppression” which is exactly what we need more of in today’s society in general. The more that people can express themselves freely results in a better chance of balancing out opinions and ideas, minimizing hate between different cultures and communities.