A Second You.

The internet is a staple and key component of todays society. All ages use it for a number of different things, amongst the most popular being social networking and virtual communities. The biggest community of social networking is done by the younger generation (teenagers) and by some is seen as their 'lifeline'. The concept of Facebook and Twitter is for people to be able to keep in contact with friends and realtives across the world, but for many it has become their only source of social interaction. This is in extreme cases but virtual communication can become addictive to some making it less likely that they'll form real relationships. There have been stories in the news about how social networks are damaging communities.

The common question asked concerning the virtual world is 'Can communities really exist online'? Facebook and Twitter are the most popular forms of creating a virtual community among the younger generation. As the community is text based with a few videos it can be resrtictive but its the users that make it the community it is today. Normally when we think of virtual communities we thing of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Bebo, all of the main social networking sites. However there are other more literal forms of virtual communities the most well known being 'Second Life'. This is an application downloaded to your computer which allows you to lead a second life in the virtual world. You're able to create your own character, change their apperance and you can even make them fly. It is supposed to resemble the life we lead in the real world but it adds the impossible elements, such as flying. As part of our experience of the virtual world we signed up for a Second Life account and had our own 'second life'. It allowed us to chat to people all over the world and expericene the virtual community being created first hand.



The idea of virtual worlds can applied to any area of life. 'Muse' specialises in creating virtual worlds for media and advertising companies. This is a more specialised type of virtual world as it seems to serve a specific purpose where as Second Life is open to everyone and has no limits (concerning businesses etc). Personally I think that being part of this virtual community is an exciting new experience, however it is known that there are dangers of creating a 'second you'. The old danger of people not being who they say they are online applies here. People get engrossed within the enjoyment of being someone new and having a network without actual interaction but this can lead to dangers.

All in all I like the idea of a virtual community because I think it allows everyone to be creative and keep in contact with people no matter how far away they are. I hope to see evenmore improvements in the future for the social network and the virtual community.

Can we make the difference?

On the internet today there are many websites devoted to the nature of campaigning. More and more young people, especially students, are getting invloved in the change of major issues. In order for us to understand where and how these ideas are developed we had to (in groups) think of a campaign idea and make a campaign video for it. My group chose to campagin to stop the idea of students having to do complusory community service to repay loan debts. Our video and campaign was called 'Students Against Community Service'. We used Channel 4's Battlefront website to gather ideas for our video. After watching numerous videos we chose to do something that we could relate to and that would effect our lives. This then developed into the idea that we shouldn't do something too serious as students are more likely to relate to a more humorous and light hearted campagin video. All this lead to the following video.




We chose the topic of 'Students Against Compulsory Community Service' because it was an issue close to our everyday life. Should the idea become reality it would be us that would 'suffer' as a result. We thought that choosing a topic close to our lives would create a good 'buzz' among students and student communities. We also all had strong negative opinions about the idea of having to do compulsory community service for gaining our degree, when the government is willing to allow us to pay back our loans once we have a decent job.

We chose to make our video simple as we believed students would listen more if there was only one thing to focus on. The humour element provides a more 'laid-back' approach to campaigning, still serious about the topic but making it more approachable for the audience to get involved. We encouraged participation by giving web addresses for Facebook and Twitter pages. We chose to advertise the pages on social networks rather than creating a webpage because, being students ourselves, we know that our campaign would get much more attention on a social networking site. We didn't make a facebook page for this topic because there already is one but we did create a twitter page.

The overall aim of this activity was to gain an understanding about how easy and beneficial it is to campaign for what you believe in and what could be changed. It is easier to make a difference in society than many of us think and espcially as a young person/student it can be hard to be heard but with the community of campaigning, using such sites as Battlefront, we are able to make that difference. This is where facebook and twitter can be very effective.