What do you think Wenger means by an "organizational unit"?

Wenger states "These 'communities of practice' are mostly informal and distinct from organizational units"

Wenger describes the relationship between 'communities of practice' and organizational units! He states that "'Communities of practice' exist in any organisation" but what he means by this organizational unit is that the memberships of these 'communities if practice' are 'based on particpation rather than official status' Therefore it is to be understood that they are not bound by organizational affiliations.

I understand that these organizational units are most likely to be within a work/ business type situation. It is a unit in which people address each other on recurring problems. Therefore by participating in these 'Units' a communal memory can be formed and will help them to do their job without having to remember everything themselves!

With this idea in mind it is important to consider that these organizational units are made up of people who have to be together whereas people in a community of practice have chosen to be together.

Week 6: Think of a CofP to which you belong (or have belonged) explain in your seminar forum how your example fits into Wenger's model.

Etienne Wenger states that "Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor". He also suggests that the most important feature of this term 'Communities of practice' is that these people "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

I personally have had the opportunity to be part of a community of practice when i had a part-time job as a waitress. This community of practice existed amongst all the staff; this included the owner, chefs and waitresses that worked there. Whilst we all did very different jobs, it was vital for us all to work together as a team in order for the restaurant to run smoothly. (A factor that was often emphasized to us by the boss).

Wenger highlights three main characteristics of this 'Community of Practice.'

Firstly the domain (a shared interest), in the case of my part-time job this was helping and serving customers to the best of our ability. The chefs and waitress needed to work together in order ensure customers were pleased and left happy, as know matter what we must remember the customer is always right!! The waitresses in my part-time job could even be described as a 'community of practice' on their own, as not only did we have the shared interest of being polite and efficient but working together and helping each other out during busy hours at the restaurant.

This lead me on to Wenger's second characteristic of 'Communities of Practice'--- The Community
This is where members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. This was definitely the case between the waitresses, and certainly built in to a wider community along side the chefs. Relationships were built that enable each of us to learn from each other. Often when a new waitress began work, one of the other waitresses than had been working there longer, took her on to train her in all the activities and jobs we had to do.


This leads me to Wengers third characteristic of 'communities of practice' and that is ----The practice -----A community of practice is not merely a community of interest--people who like certain kinds of movies, for instance. Members of a community of practice are practitioners.

In AJ's (the restaurant I worked in) The practice involved running the restaurant productively and effectively whilst being able to take time out and be polite and at times over helpful towards customers. As a team we also shared the knowledge of being able to help each other out, whether it was simple tasks as how to work the tills or perhaps dissatisfied customers.

Somebody else's blog!!!!

I did a random search for somebody's else s blog and after rummaging through a number of blogs this one struck me. http://sarahstourdiary.blogspot.com/2009/02/this-makes-me-happy.html

I really liked this blog not only is it very popular 10,315 profile views, but the author uses a range of colourful images, videos, and colourful writing. The blog is mainly articles of her interest, and her day to day activities, for example her tattoo extravaganza. It is highly personalised - "an online stream of consciousness".(http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/5604.php)

The author also asks advice off her readers of what they think she should do, or perhaps asking people opinions of questions she asks. It also seem that she trys to encourage readers of her blog to vote and particpate in her interests such as " SSOV head office" (vegan interests) she also writes up her opinions and thoughts on her favourite films.
The author, Sarah, i think is some sort of female magazine writer, who is also using her blog to promote her stuff.
Most of the responses are from friends or fans.
It is definately a very female orintated blog which would attract female attention.

Enough about blogs???

Do some online research into blogs as a new media genre: their origins, development etc and share your findings in your entries. What forms of expression are they really good for?


'When a type of discourse or communicative action acquires a common name within a given context or community, that’s a good sign that it’s functioning as a genre (Miller, 1984). The weblog seems to have acquired this status very quickly, with an increasing amount of attention and commentary in the mainstream press reinforcing its status.' (http://mediatingconflict.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-genre-literary-form-medium.html)

My research led me to this above quote, which i felt was helpful in looking at blogs in relations to genres. Blogs are one of the most popular of online content, informational blogs allow writers to share their interests, skills, and knowledge with interested readers.

An interesting article by Frédéric Filloux has also helped to shed light on the subjects of blogs. He quite rightly states that blogs started as "little more than populist rants" but has now "transcended its origins and grown into a fresh new journalistic genre, one that is likely to become the main engine of modern news sites."

I found it interested how blogs have now become trusted sources or even help shape debates. Alot of journalists now use blogs (check out “The Note” a blog, created by ABC News in 2002 and read the story in The New Yorker about its founder Mark Halperin), which people find far more interesting and enjoyable to read than a proper news story, therefore if you want to find something" livelier, more fun, with more flesh, you turn to blogs maintained by trustworthy journalists". http://www.mondaynote.com/2009/01/05/blogging-a-new-journalistic-genre/

When collaborative sites have moderation functions to prevent a ‘free for all’, does this defeat the purpose?

OK so the most obvious collaborative website is Wikipedia. Bruns comments about the importance of creating a "balance between openness and structure." I personally think there has to be restrictions put in place in order to refrain from people feeling alienated, insulted or offended. I don't think it defeats the purpose because there is plenty for people to talk/write about without being offensive towards others. It's important that people express and share their views however i do think its pointless if it's going to result in encouraging world wide issues such as racism. People will not benefit in the long term from published articles like this.

What about Bruns??? A few thoughts and questions?

What do you understand by the words ‘produser’, ‘produsage’, and ‘intercreativity’?

Prousers are involved in user-led content production. They represent a user of something (for example wikipedia) but also a producer of it. Other examples include
-Open news
-Open Source
- Open content repositories e.g wilkipedia and Flickr
- Collaborative knowledge communities e.g Google earth
- Produser communities round commercial products for example The Sims or remember Second Life we spoke about before.

Bruns definition states "The production of ideas takes place in a collaborative, participantory environment which breaks down the boundaries between producers and prousers of information and knowledge"

Produsage is the content that is produced by prousers. The concept of produsage highlights that within the communities which engage in the collaborative creation and extension of information and knowledge.
The title of one of Bruns books highlights three of the main types of produsage "Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage" This book captures a shift in cultural logic which is profoundly altering how culture gets produced.

Intercreativity - Am not overly sure about this one. I think it refers the creativity of interaction. For example the ability to be creative on websites like Second Life (building houses, casinos, people) but at the same time being interactive with other people on line.

Are they useful in understanding collaborative creation of content online?
Yes. Produsers tend to use a collection of other peoples work or content and bring it all together rather than work by themselves as individual content producers. Therefore produsage helps to describe the final production of this content with has been put together using the intercreativity of each online user.

‘Indymedia and the New Net News' by Graham Meikle. Some questions and thoughts!

What do you think constitutes ‘news’ on the Web?
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0304/02-feature.ph

Burnett and Marshall identify the changes to the "nature of news" and also made the observation "that new media forms offer enhanced flexibility" ( para 8 & 9). The idea that everyone and anyone can access the 'news' by using the internet at any time of the day has changed the social norms of what would have been the daily lives of people say ten years ago. People were used to receiving the news once or twice a day by watching the morning and night news on TV, or perhaps picking up the daily newspaper.
However the 'news' on the web is a completely revolutionary idea which means we can access the latest news, for example a plane crash that only happened 10 minutes ago or even the currant or latest football scores. There is such flexibility and wide choice of 'news' websites allowing you to access differing opinions or takes on a particular story almost immediately and at the same time.

The web also provides not only the newspaper style or write up on a story but also visual images and often established websites such as BBC News offer videos of either the actual incident and also the latest news report as seen on TV. Their websites are often divided up into lots of different sub-categories and interests, whether its your local news or sport or even business politics and technology categories supplying people with specific interests in the one place.

The internet has become a great source of trusted information, and as Burnett & Marshall both stated this concept of “informational news,” has defined “the transformation of journalism and news in Web culture".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Are there ‘new kinds of journalist’ online? If so, how so?

Yes! There seems to be increasingly new types of journalists online, within the journal article newsgroups and Weblogs are mentioned as types of journalists. There is no question that these are indeed a form of journalism, people are writing blogs on either subjects of interest and/or their own thoughts and opinions. Simularly newsgroups which consist of posted messages from many users in different locations, it is usually a disscusion group.

Another type of journalism is the website Wikipedia (mentioned in this weeks lecture). This website alllows people to post information and articles concerning meanings of words and associations. These are then checked and confirmed by professional sources and published on their website. Therefore anyone has the opportunity to be a form of journalist, and when searched the internet has endless opportunities/ websites that allow people to particpant in this way.

The Indymedia Website, a network of activists who provide an open publishing platform, is a great example of a website providing online journalism.
It describes itself as a" A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues. " http://www.indymedia.org.uk/


Is open news quality news?

My intial answer to this is NO. As the opportunity that such websites like Indymedia give means that the news reported or the article on the a specfic subject may not be completely factual. As they are more than likely will not have been given full access to important factors or crucial points to a story that perhaps a trusted newsline such as BBC or ITV would have. As these people (those using the web to publish their work) are quite likely not to be fully trained journalists then their story may be tainted with bias or opinions. Which most professional news lines/ journalists would avoid depending on who their writing for.

However, perhaps one shouldnt be so pesimistic!! Some users of these online publishers may have taken their time to research a particular story or topic and ensured that the information they give is not only factual but informative.