Dichotomy++Community+Virtual+and+Real+communities


 * Dichotomy Community Virtual and Real communities**

The anthropossocial system was born of a concern and of an interrogation on the Man and his place in the History, in the nature and in the community, meaning that the understanding of the individual is only possible taking into account the central position that this one occupies in the crossroad of several systems. In the net of social relations they can enumerate five dimensions: · The personal dimension (an individual in particular) · The interpersonal dimension (when there is an individuals' meeting) · The group dimension (groups, families, community) · The organizational dimension (burocratization of the world and of the life) · The instituitional-societarian dimension (analysis of the production and reproduction of the social dominant relations). The system anthropossocial intervenes principally in the first three dimensions. The hypothesis is that each individual is a bearer of the culture or of the sub-culture to which it belongs and of what is representative. The cultural structures (set of representations, of values, of habits, of social rules, of symbolic codes, of behaviors) internalized by the individual can be explicative elements of personal and social behaviors. Then, in which principles are the communities based on? Typaldos (2000) presents twelve: the communities, so that they can be considered as such, will have an objective, an identity, there will be communication, confidence, reputation, an obvious formation of groups, frontiers, government, exchange or commerce, expression and history. By objective we mean a shared or common interest. Why is one here? What do we want to achieve? Why do individuals gather with a certain regularity and contribute one way or another? Identity is to know who is who. As in any community, people want to know with whom they are communicating with. Nevertheless, in the virtual communities, based on text, the traditional sensory traces are lacking. It is impossible to take a glance of the individual and see his physical language. It is impossible to hear the sincerity - or lack of it - in the voice. It is impossible to notice how the person interacts with other elements of the group. As nobody is obliged to reveal the real name, by which it’s known, or the address in the real world (off-line), people usually adopt a solid and recognizable identity in virtual environment. Very often, it is on behaviors of the individual that his identity is built. The communication is a form of sharing information or ideas. How do we interact with other members of the group? Which tools do we use and which means do we use to share and to talk? Without communication it is impossible the existence of a community is real or virtual it. By confidence we mean " to know with whom one is and in whom to trust". Will it be that they can dispose of me as much as I can dispose of others? How much can I reveal unless that causes me any discomfort? A community does not work without trust. The trust results from the identity and is the basis of the reputation. The reputation is recognizing and building a status based on actions. The groups include and stimulate the human relationship normally between a reduced number of individuals. Any community exists in a determined environment - interaction in shared space appropriated for the objectives - and it has been delimiting his frontiers - know who belongs or not, who is a resident or who is just visiting. The regulation and moderation of the behavior of the individuals according with the principles and the shared or declared values in this community - government - is essential for the maintenance and survival of this community. More over, the exchange - system of exchange knowledge, services, ideas, support or, even, goods -, the expression - to have a linguistic identity of the group-, and the history - look backwards and to feel that there was an evolution from his creation - are elements consider in any community. Then if so it is, will there be some difference between the real communities and the virtual communities? Aren’t virtual communities real communities? What distinguishes them? The answer is in the technology and environment: the computer and the access to the Internet. We’re talking about the cyberspace. The cyberspace is connected with the theories of community if we understand them as a social emergent space, such as the suburbs of a city. It is a social alternative space where there are individuals who work, play, buy, meet, speak, learn, etc., in a determined form and in specific places. It is possible, however, to be an owner of space, be able to stay during the time we want or are able to, to visit a city or a friend, and finally, also to be completely lost and disorientated. But, as in the real world, we can always turn back home or to the starting point. In fact, we might simulate the structural situation of a virtual community on-line, mainly the groups that use the computer mediated communication (CMC), by joining a group of unknown individuals in a dark room, asking them to communicate by writing only tickets and sticking them in a board. However, let's not forget that the individuals build his lives in small groups: initially in the family, then in the groups of friends, in the groups of colleagues of work and others. The nature of the small groups is in giving body to the communication face-to-face using facial expressions, physical gestures, tone of voice, accent and rhythm, giving a communicative richness, that hardly will be reproduced in electronic context. In fact, what it seemed impossible of surpassing, it is not of all, due to the inventive capacity and creativity of Man. So, in context of CMC, namely in Chatrooms either with the smilies or other graphic forms, one assists to countless ways of informing the other about our accent, our tone of voice, facial expression, rhythm, etc. The virtual communities are not communities of imagination and of excitement, nor are its members alienated of the social and cultural reality. There is a social control, which is reflected in the communication and in the relation of power that is established between his members. The type of connection and of existence that the virtual communities make possible to all his members is not meant by them necessarily a complete removal, for part of the members of the virtual communities, of his lives and local cultures. On the contrary, according to the central argument of the communication, this local existence, the more local it is the more global it will be and vice-versa. It is the local existences that fill out the cyberspace and the whole cyberculture. In digest, we have to understand that there are several perspectives different from the reality, resultant of the communication and not of reflexes of eternal inalterable or objective truths (Watzlawick, 1991:7). As the author affirms (1991:8), " ... to believe that our perspective itself of the reality is the only reality, it is the most dangerous of the illusions and becomes still more dangerous if missionary is associated to a zeal of illuminating the rest of the world, he wants the rest of the world should want to be illuminated or not ". The reality that we survive in our daily lives, absentee of perturbations caused by the emergence of new technologies, is not alone. I have many doubts if this type of reality still exists, since the technology and his constant innovations, are present in our days, present in all the societies. The cyberspace, the cyberculture and the virtual communities, are other possible realities in this world of floating innovations and renovations of what exists. Cyberculture and the virtual community, there are no things "out of this world ", they make part of this world, of this society and of his reformulation, reorganization and conceptual restructuring. The Internet, the cyberspace, the cyberculture and the virtual community, they do not make possible the existence in a world different and much more perfect than the "real" world in which we live.