One of the more frequent topics discussed in the Communication classes I’ve taken so far at Johns Hopkins is the fluctuation of community in a dominantly-digital media environment.  Some theorists contend that civic responsibility is a foregone ideology; people are more individualized than ever before.  Whereas the TV set in the living room was the hearth of the family, now TV sets in the parent’s room and the child’s room are indicators of a society that no longer talks to each other.  On the other hand, theorists more likely to embrace the digital potential, argue that contemporary communication platforms, such as blogs and video podcasts, are creating a new society that is more unified than its predecessor.

Both groups have well-grounded arguments.  Generally, I am one of those “old fogies” that is highly suspicious of the rapid pace at which American society produces (whose products often seem useless and a quick money-making scheme).  If you need an example, does the segway help?  I will not rant about the segway here, but know that I detest it and the fact that some encourage laziness in the disguise of efficiency. 

However, I am leaning more towards joining the cheerleading team of the latter group, the group that proudly recognizes bloggers and members of other collaborative digital communities as initiators of a new community – a community of people who like each other, who desire to be connected in ways much more intimate than ever before. 

Take my personal example.  As a teenager and college student, I was always in search of the “other side.”  I was interested in the flip side of whatever was considered mainstream, including music, films, academic doctrine, etc.  Like my classmates and all young adults, I sought uniqueness and individualism and sought friends with similar disregard to popular culture. 

Perhaps age and maturation shifted my perspective to coincide more so with mainstream culture.  I no longer desire to defy or question for the sake of questioning.  But I’m not sure if I would have recognized this change if I did not blog.  I’ve just recently been introduced to the web indexing  of keywords called folksonomy that makes it easier for users to link to other like topics within their own web page or to another web page. 

I found myself creating tags (or categories like those on this blog) that were easy to understand.  I even changed categories that I thought were too obscure for most people.   Why is this significant?  It indicates that deep inside, I want to be part of a community that uses the same language and descriptors to make it easier to connect to each other, both literally and figuratively.  I am no longer the rebellious 18-year-old.  I now choose to be a member of the ever-increasing digital majority – bloggers. 

The question is:  Are we part of a community barely connected by millions of individual bubbles?  Or are we forging into an army of new collaborative communicators?