FW: [Air-l] Re: Company vs. Community

[R.A.Hope-Hume at open.ac.uk]

Doesn't the same thing happen to 'communities of interest' where
business sees an oppotrunty to make money out of the community they target
them
in marketing? I'm thinking of the marketing to 'rockabillies', 'heavy
metal' or 'gays'.

Bob Hope-hume

> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. Silver
> To: air-l
> Sent: 17/12/01 16:48
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Re: Company vs. Community
>
>
>
> Intellectually and politically speaking, I agree wholeheartedly with
> Andrew's comment above.  But it seems to me that one of the most
common
> (and nefarious depending where you stand on the issue) developments in
> mainstream cyberculture during, say, 1997 - 2000 has been the
> commercialization of online communities.  Is it just me or does it
> appear
> to the rest of you that the folks at Amazon, Yahoo, and
> fill-in-the-blank.com have been reading Howard Rheingold?  For a
number
> of
> dot.coms (and former dot.coms ... rip), there's a thin line between
> commerce and community:  Online communities are set up and nurtured as
> portals to e-commerce.
>
> I've seen very little critical work on this angle but a good start is
> Chris Werry's "Imagined Electronic Community: Representations of
Online
> Community in Business Texts" and Janelle Brown's "Three Case Studies,"
> both in Online Communities: Commerce, Community Action, and the
Virtual
> University, edited by Chris Werry and Miranda Mowbray (Hewlett-Packard
> Professional Books, 2001).
>
> david silver
> http://faculty.washington.edu/dsilver
>
>