Real world LA government Town Hall in Metaplace
This was cool — State Representative Nancy Landry of Louisiana just held a town hall meeting in Metaplace. A big part of the event was Q&A sessions with a middle school class run by teacher Margret Atkinson of Northwestern Middle School, and in attendance were the state’s Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek, and the school’s principal, Debby Brian. I believe a few blog posts elsewhere and a video of the event are forthcoming. Eidt: and here’s one.
I was asked to give brief remarks on digital citizenship, and here they are:
So I was asked to make a few comments about digital citizenship, and I think the thing that most strikes me about an event like this is the fact that citizenship is the same whether it exists in the real world or a digital framework. Here we all are at this wonderful event, and the things that we are talking about in this cartoony, digital world are big important, real world issues, like funding for science education, and the legislative process.
Online communities are a VENUE, not an end in themselves. They are just a new way for us to engage in very old practices. And I think that if we managed to transplant some folks from ancient Athens and given them an intensive course in language and computer literacy, they would be perfectly at home with the substance of the discussions today!
At the same time, I think that it also highlights how important that digital literacy IS; after all, without those lessons, they would be less able to participate. And as our society’s tech capabilities grow, I think it’s wonderful to see that our society — and legislators — and principals and school superintendents, and teachers — are willing to invest in that literacy so that future voters, citizens, will be able to participate to the best of their ability using this new technology.
So I want to just say thank you to all of you for taking the plunge!
9 Responses to “Real world LA government Town Hall in Metaplace”
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“Online communities are a VENUE, not an end in themselves.”
Amen.
–matt
Neat. I always enjoy reading articles like this one. I also think you put that statement rather well.
How can online communities be venues? Communities are made up of individuals. To qualify as a venue, doesn’t something have to be a place? Communities could be venues for concepts that “take place” in them, I guess, such as “the expression of personality”, but unless you make such a qualification they can’t count as venues.
If you were using “online communities” to mean “online worlds”, I suppose that would do it – except the two aren’t the same thing.
Richard
Richard – I can’t help feel like we’re all re-parsing definitions that you managed to bring some clarity to (and thanks for that! You’re a hero to so many 🙂 )
However, I believe this parsing is happening because it feels like we’re at a stage where we’re looking for words to express the increasing sense that online worlds aren’t as neatly defined, or to put it another way – that we’re looking for words to express that while online worlds hold communities, those communities are increasingly “cross-border” and so we’d like terminology to express “communities with a foundation in an online world where the venue for community can take different forms in addition to the world.”
Maybe it’s just me, and it’s not like these are NEW things, online worlds have always had elements of sociality that extend past the world space itself. But I’m personally increasingly interested in how to describe virtual communities that exist across multiple spaces, rather than trying to contain that sense of community within the term ‘virtual world’ or ‘online world’ because that limits our descriptive capacities.
In this case, I’m going to reparse – because I don’t think a venue is equivalent to “place”. A newspaper is a “venue” (for expressing opinion, say) or the arts is a “venue for personal expression” – neither need to be a place, they can BE places but they can also be forums. I don’t see why “venue” needs to be qualified – in common language it isn’t, why does it need to be when attached to online communities?
So: online communities, which can share a sense of place in an online world, can nonetheless have various venues for expression.
Or, in this case, a real world community can use online venues for expression, among them online worlds.
I think a more accurate term is avenue, but venue is also synonymous with outlet. And we use outlet figuratively as well: “an outlet for aggression.”
People also tend to inhere the qualities of places. For example, go to the blacksmith means “find the blacksmith at the place where the blacksmith is known to be.”
Community is defined, ecologically, as a “group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other.” Place is a component of community, so describing communities as venues isn’t completely wrong.
[…] real world implications – you have people marrying people they’ve met in world, you have political talks with speaking avatars, you have virtual affairs that ruin relationships, people are killed, you have concerts that […]
i think we should ask “were the nazis invited?” oops. wrong thread..i think;)
maybe not.;)
media literacy is sorely needed today. my teacher and gov rep are cartoons.- jimmy grade 8.
c3
Dusan Writer>“communities with a foundation in an online world where the venue for community can take different forms in addition to the world.”
This is still “venue” to mean “place”. There’s a big difference in saying that online worlds are a venue for communities (which I agree with) and saying that communities are themselves venues.
>I’m personally increasingly interested in how to describe virtual communities that exist across multiple spaces, rather than trying to contain that sense of community within the term ‘virtual world’ or ‘online world’ because that limits our descriptive capacities.
OK, so you want to get across the idea that community rides the ether, phasing in and out of different spaces as it touches them. Fair enough. I fail to see from that how you get “online communities are a venue”.
>I don’t think a venue is equivalent to “place”. A newspaper is a “venue” (for expressing opinion, say) or the arts is a “venue for personal expression” – neither need to be a place
That’s using the term metaphorically. In both cases, you have to say what it is that the concept in question is a venue for – you can’t just say it’s a venue straight out, because the metaphor needs the other component. If I said “hunger is a venue” or “dogs are a venue”, you wouldn’t have the faintest idea what I was talking about – you’d have to try and interpret it poetically unless I told you what it’s a venue for (ie. what takes place in it).
>I don’t see why “venue” needs to be qualified – in common language it isn’t, why does it need to be when attached to online communities?
It doesn’t need to be qualified when it is attached to something that is instantly recognisable as a place. If it’s attached to something that you are likening to a place, then there needs to be something more to sustain the analogy. Now if you said “communities are spaces of belonging”, you could further that with “they are venues where the play between individual and group is acted out” and you’d be fine – you’ve established the premise of the metaphor and then run with it.
If you say “Online communities are a VENUE” then you have to say what they’re a venue for (or of). If I said “Online communities are a SHAPE”, well that may well be true but it’s no use to anyone as it stands. I’ve established the premise, but not followed it through.
>So: online communities, which can share a sense of place in an online world, can nonetheless have various venues for expression.
So why not say “Online communities are a VENUE for expression”? That makes perfect sense, and tells the reader what takes place in them. Otherwise, it could be anything.
Personally, I still don’t see what you get from saying this: online worlds are venues for community, but all communities are venues for expression; why pick on their online component in particular? If a community can manifest in multiple, disparate locations, why make a point about online communities in particular? Come to that, what does “online community” even mean in this context? Communities are rarely confined to one location, they spill out into others; you can talk about a community as it manifests online, or which engages primarily online, but communities that only exist online are few and far between.
>Or, in this case, a real world community can use online venues for expression, among them online worlds.
I have no problems with the view that communities can use venues; my hackles rise when communities are stated to be equivalent to venues, without any mention of the basis for the equivalence.
Richard
maybe a sad truth is that “online communities” has begun to mean “packaged-produced-TOS’d-vc funded products of place” in the “main stream meme think” of this web blogged “community?”..
thus they are “venues” – even in the “physical” sence of place or service…
civic terminlogy already corrupted,?
less we forget even “usenet” has been removed from most big cable ISP broadband packages… so “free” gets bastardized in language as well as “online community” and even finally “venue”
orwell would have a field day, if he already hadnt…:)
anyway.
c3