blog 6

The KEY point that Jenkins wanted to let his audience know is that the world we live in is a participatory culture and the history has told us that that the world we live in is an every changing human network. He believes that how schools are handling the rise of social networking is wrong. Our societal view is that young people can’t take on responsibility or make an impact. Jenkins wants the audience to understand that this generation of people can make a difference in the world we live in today. He believes social networking is for the better and having the ability to interact with one another and collaborate can solve problems and bring this world together. The various points he backs this up with range from harry potter group fundraising to invisible children and Darfur.

This relates to Weinberger in many ways, but the most important idea they share together is the idea of a user focused web. This also happens to be the main idea of Web 2.0. Weinberger talks about the digital order and categorization being centered around the user, well Jenkins focuses more on how users come together on the web. These are different ideas, but they surround the idea that we, as the people who use the internet, create content as well as collaboratively come together to contribute to the vast knowledge of the web.

I think Jenkins brings up very good points about how social networking has brought people together. A great example of this is Reddit.com. I have actually just started going to this website this semester, so when I saw your video on Mr. Splashy Pants I knew exactly the kind of community discussed in the video. After some more research I found out the Reddit members have come together and raised money for various charities. (185,350 to Haiti relief; 600,000 to Donor’s Choose; 45,000 World Vision’s Clean Water Fund) This surprised me because I have always just assumed the kind of people in the Reddit community wouldn’t contribute like they have. I am not saying bad people post on this website, but it just seems difficult to believe hundreds of thousands of dollars can be raised through mostly twenty and thirty year olds.

When you sit behind your screen and see reports of horrible problems in this world you sometimes forget that it is actually REAL. It is easy to join a group on Facebook and “like” something, but what does that actually accomplish? Many people come together and talk and argue about various problems within various communities, but whatever gets done? We can talk all we want over the Internet, but more action must take place. It’s good to communicate and get ideas out, but it seems too many people just read the problem, and then click on the next news article or story. It is comforting to see actual internet communities coming together in real life (see rally at Washington DC with redditers) and raising money.