Bewarethegeek Goes Digital

The community – an introduction

The community in which I have been participating and analysing is the Tegan and Sara fan community, known as .ca among members. With over 8000 members, it is a highly active community of teens and adults from all over the world. From my experience, the majority of members are female, and a large percentage of them do not identify as heterosexual. Conversation is in no way limited to Tegan and Sara, with a huge range of topics from music to politics, computers, general conversation and more.

With regard to the technological environment, .ca runs on the open source phpBB bulletin board software. While this software does not include the more advanced social networking features seen on Facebook, it allows standard forum-style posting, with categories and threads for conversation, as well as private messaging and user profile customisation.

What sort of learning events/activities occur on .ca?

While there are no formal learning activities organised on .ca, learning is incidental and is occurring constantly in every day conversation. One need only look in most threads to find an example of learning. For example, in the music related sections of .ca, users are requesting and exchanging song tabs and charts for a range of instruments and bands. They’re giving each other advice on how best to play difficult parts of songs or how to improve playing their chosen instrument. In addition to learning about music, they’re also learning how to collaborate. In general discussion there are threads about coming out, in which members share their stories and histories, thus learning about themselves, and from each other. Those homosexual members of the board who are still closeted or going through a difficult period can find support. In the politics section of the board, there is a great deal of discussion regarding homosexuality, politics and religion, especially with regard to Prop 8 and Catholicism. Here, members of .ca are learning numerous things, but most importantly how politics and the beliefs of others can affect their lifestyles and how to consider the view points of others.

A framework for analysis

With this in mind, I would like to examine learning in this community within the framework of social penetration theory and disclosure. “’Social penetration’ is the term used to describe the movement from superficial levels of learning about each other to more personal, intimate levels” (Altman & Taylor 1973, 1987; cited by Saunders 2008, p. 19). This movement is intrinsically linked with disclosure in the form of social exchange (Saunders 2008, p. 19). The importance here is that the more information is mutually exchanged and disclosed, the more topics of conversation are available and the greater the learning opportunities (Saunders 2008, p. 19). Furthermore, self disclosure increases an individual’s opportunity to learn about one’s self, as well as others (Saunders 2008, p. 22).

Having considered the self disclosure of members of the community, it is surprising how much occurs. Intimate details of members’ lives, thoughts and feelings were shared on the board with seemingly little regard for how many people would be reading the information and how many would be exchanging information. In a sense this contrasts social penetration theory, as often a member would disclose personal information and receive nothing back. The risks of greater disclosure as mentioned by Saunders (2008) do not seem to apply here and perhaps this is due to the size of the board, giving members a sense of anonymity within the community (p. 19).

How do I learn and participate on .ca?

As a participant and learner on .ca, my learning centred around the music and technology categories. In the technology category, I first began to participate in the tech support thread, collaborating with other members to solve computer issues. Later, my interest in drumming took me to the music forum where I searched for others with similar interests. I found no one had started a drumming thread, so I started one myself and asked the community if anyone would be interested in helping me to transcribe music. A girl volunteered to transcribe into tab and I volunteered to transcribe her tabs into charts. We’ve since collaborated over several songs and posted them onto the board for other community members to enjoy and learn from. Therefore, my role as a participant and learner was similar to others’ in the community. I became involved in conversations that interested me, volunteered my knowledge for the benefit of others, utilised others’ knowledge for the benefit of my learning and have begun to get to know members who regularly post in the sections of the community I am interested in.

This last point is particularly relevant to disclosure and social penetration theory. To be included in discussions and thus fulfil my role as a participant, I first had to disclose information about myself – that I knew about computers, that I worked in technical support, that I was a drummer. Other members of the community then reciprocated, disclosing information about themselves back to me. Social exchange began (Saunders 2008, p. 19) and as social penetration theory suggests, our topics of conversation increased and broadened with each exchange. I also found this experience agreed with social penetration theory’s suggestion that people match each other’s level of disclosure (Saunders 2008, p. 19). However, it seemed that my level of self disclosure did not match the norms of the community, which may have actually limited the exchanges, as though our topics of conversation have broadened they have not reached the intimacy of some of the more general conversations occurring in the community.

How does .ca support or hinder learning?

Based on its categorical structure, .ca is a vehicle for learning. The simplicity of its technological platform means that anyone with a moderate level of technological skill can utilise it without being overwhelmed by the learning curve. The categorical layout of conversation topics provides a structure for members to propose conversation topics and questions while still maintaining order and keeping the community easy to navigate. This structure allows members to find areas of interest to them and engage in discussions, thus providing an environment in which learning can occur. With regard to social penetration theory and disclosure, as mentioned, it is a norm in the community that high levels of disclosure occur and this is accepted both by members and by moderators. In this light, moderators also act as facilitators of learning by ensuring that the community rules are maintained and no inappropriate disclosure occurs (Saunders 2008, p. 22). There are sometimes instances of new members, in their lack of understanding of the community norms, inadvertently spamming numerous threads and monopolising conversations. This is controlled by both the moderators suggesting that the members post more appropriately and the other members informing them of the rules of the board, therefore “appropriate self disclosure is…monitored for breadth and depth by the parties,” (Saunders 2008, p. 22).

It is interesting to note that the structure and functions of the community which make it appropriate for learning in some cases also hinders learning. The size and broadness of conversation topics sometimes make it difficult to find an exact area one is interested in. In addition, due to the size, threads are sometimes inadvertently ignored and voices are ‘lost in the crowd.’ There is also a language barrier for some members. As mentioned, the nationality of members spans the globe. The majority of threads in the community are in English and for many members English is their second language. While there is an international section in which languages other than English are used, members in this section do not benefit from the breadth of knowledge and opinions in the much larger English speaking section of the community.

An interpretation of the experience

Overall, my experiences with this community have been positive and enlightening. These experiences have held true with research performed on learning communities, in particular that by Kilpatrick et al. (2003). In the .ca community, I have found that common interests bring members together, these interests leading to a sharing of knowledge and also the generation of new knowledge (Kilpatrick et al. 2003). Here is a community which has not been formed with learning in mind but generated out of a band fan basis. Kilpatrick et al. (2003) and Downs (2004) both suggest that norms and values are created based on the amounts of disclosure which occur between members. In my experience, not only did this clearly occur on .ca but it also agrees with social penetration theory and disclosure as discussed by Saunders (2008). Given the fact that members live all over the world, clearly group diversity is also valued (Gokhale 2005). As a learner and participant, my expectations of inclusiveness and learning .ca’s norms have been met by the acceptance and friendliness of its members. Furthermore, looking in on the community from the outside, I was able to see that more than just conversation and sharing of knowledge occurs, there is very much a social aspect of learning occurring through the experience of interaction and through disclosure (Wenger 1999; Saunders 2008). The result of this is that members learn about themselves, as well as how they are seen by others (Saunders 2008) and I feel this is particularly important given that many members use the community as a support network for dealing with complicated social issues such as homosexuality, politics and religion.

References

• Downs, S. 2004, Learning in Communities, Australian Flexible Learning Community, viewed March 24, 2009 <http://community.flexiblelearning.net.au/GlobalPerspectives/content/article_5249.htm>

• Gokhale, A. 1995. Collaborative Learning Enhances Critical Thinking. Journal of Technology Education. Vol 7, No 1.

• Kilpatrick, S., Barratt, M., Jones, T. 2003, Defining learning communities, viewed March 24, 2009 <http://www.aare.edu.au/03pap/jon03441.pdf>

• Saunders, S. 2008, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, in Athanasou, J. (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, edn 2, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, ch.3.

• Wenger, E. 1999, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge University Press, USA.