Sunday, July 12, 2015

Try to Fit In

Reading “Becoming a Blogger: Trajectories, Norms, and Activities in a Community of Practice” (Dennen, 2014) served as a guideline for participating in my ‘new’ online community. The part that interests me the most is below table:
 
Source: Dennen, 2014

I found this part useful in observing my community interaction as well as keeping myself being an “ethical” member. I now participate in two Indonesian communities. Some questions I have in mind: Are the above norms applicable in other communities, particularly in a community with different cultural background? Who will enforce the norms once it is violated? I have yet reached conclusive findings, although I found that there are similar reactions to violations as described above.

As a new member, I spent quite a while to observe other members’ posts/blogs (format, storyline, photo use), how they interact, and the language they are using. Although the community is mainly using Indonesian language to communicate, there are specific words/abbreviations used that I am not familiar with.  It is amazing how am I willing to change my communication style in order to fit in. 
So far, I haven't got any negative reactions but I think I am having this post-lurker syndrome: afraid to speak up, afraid of what others think of me. Well, what’s the story with your community?


Reference: Dennen, V. P. (2014). Becoming a blogger: Trajectories, norms, and activities in a community of practice. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 350-358.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Nadia, Thank you for this enlightening post. I enjoyed reading your experience in your chosen communities.
    I also found the section of this paper very interesting. As a peripheral member, I also think it is good for me to observe the community first before I can confidently engaged with its activities. I agree with you that we need time to adjust our communication style in order to fit into a specific community. I am also participating in two parenting online forums, I haven't participated in any of their discussions yet, just simply observe for now. (A passive lurker :-) ) I am planning to involve more when I feel I am ready for accepting all the norms in the communities :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. These are certainly ideal reactions... whether or not violations are actually met with punishment is another story. There's such a density of material in many online communities that going after one infraction will result in missing one hundred others. Leadership in the community also plays a part; look at how Reddit shuddered to a halt after one moderator was fired and the rest of the board started a revolution.

    ReplyDelete

Creative Commons License
This work by Nadia Andayani is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.