The community I decided to describe this week is intercollegiate club gymnastics. This community is a combination of student athletes (male and female), coaches, and judges from across the country. The Cornell Club Gymnastics team has its own social network (comprised of team members and our coach) and is also apart of the larger intercollegiate social network (comprised of other college teams, their members and coaches, and judges). These social networks can be considered as a classic Gemeinschaft. It is based on strong interpersonal ties (communication is essential for group cohesion and for arranging competitions); it has a shared focus and common purpose (gymnastics); and it has a common language (terminology that might be confusing to people unfamiliar with gymnastics). This makes it easy for everyone to connect (physically, intellectually) allowing for more social activities (competitions, banquets, fundraisers, etc).
The social network consists of strong and weak ties that exist FtF and in CMC; this combination of media is an example of Etzioni and Etzioni (1999) synergies. The ties within each team are very strong with frequent communication spanning almost all spaces (FtF, phone, email, IM) about practice times, fundraisers, and team events. This network is dense because of the close and frequent contact the actor’s have with one another. Members of the team obviously go to the same school, practice with each other, and probably hangout outside of the gym. This means that they have a lot of common ground in their commitments to school and gym. Ties between teams are somewhat weak, with communication limited to mainly email, occasional phone calls to schedule or confirm upcoming events, and actually meeting at the events. This weak tie adds variety and range to the network because they are from different universities and offer different resources. However, the actors’ common commitment to gymnastics makes the social network more salient; we all just want to do gymnastics and have fun competing, there isn’t much tension or stress.
This community involves the use of social capital extensively. Human capital (skills, knowledge, and judgment) is used to determine team representatives (captains) that typically communicate with one another, and it is also used to determine the credentials of coaches and judges. Teams constantly mobilize their resources (contacts) to exchange information and exert influence on future events (locations, times, etc). They invest time/money/support into events and event planning by informing teams of the event and reserving judges and a place to compete (with equipment). This investment in social relations also has an expected returns (reciprocity), in which a team may host a meet earlier in the season and then another team hosts one later so the same team isn’t always sponsoring an event. For example, a different team hosts nationals every year.
This example of a community can answer the question posed by Haythornwaite - how can a community exist without physical co-location? It can exist through the use of various media (phone, email, IM, etc) to mobilize resources and use your contacts to achieve a particular purpose (like arranging a competition). There are on- and offline synergies present in this community. Because the teams are spread out across the region/country, it is more convenient and quicker to correspond via CMC. The leanness of CMC can actually support the richness of a community by connecting members across time and space; while FtF meetings require planning and scheduling a time/place to meet weeks in advance, CMC meetings can be an on going discussion where you can leave thoughts and ideas freely (without the time constraints of a FtF meeting). These online synergies are then transferred to offline synergies when teams meet in person before an event to help set-up or at general body meetings to discuss policies, future engagements, etc.
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3 comments:
Samantha, you make some good points in this post. I agree with a lot of what you said, especially since I wrote about something very similar- my diving team. I like how you brought up the opposing team as a weak tie. I only addressed my personal teammates but you have a good point. Everyone participating in club gymnastics could potentially fit into this group. On Facebook, for example, you may join a group about gymnastics and become part of the same community as one of your competitors.
Samantha, this was a good example of how CMC can aid in reinforcing pre-existing communities. Your community is a team which means that you work together and definitely share common goals an purpose. A entirely based on social capital if you consider the coach a part of the team. The point of practicing as a team with a coach is that you learn from other's skills, knowledge, and experiences. CMC helps in supporting this community by making it easier to coordinate. Without CMC, it would be harder to coordinate with everyone at once. Email allows for scheduling and removes the need for phone trees and other less effective means of communicating. CMC also allows you to combine your community with other communities (other teams) to form a larger community of all gymnists. Good blog post.
You have a very interesting post and you do a great job tying it into theories taught in class. It is always interesting to compare CMC to FtF and see how the different forms of communication can result in different strength bonds and friendships. But at the same time, the convenience of CMC cannot be overlooked. Good job tying everything together.
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