week 2

Last time in class, it was quite interesting to me the conversation we had about whether or not we believe that recent technology and the globalization of today's society has broken down the sense of community that was once so prevalent in the past as well as the emphasis of structure versus agency. In my mind there are truths to both sides of these ideas. I think that our sense of community has in most cases has been weakened with the introduction of the rapidly growing monster that is the Internet. The advancements in the way that news is received nowadays provided by the Internet has really changed the way people interact and see the world outside of their own existence. The way it used to be was that news mostly spread through towns from neighbor to neighbor by way of word of mouth, which was a way more intimate and physically interactive way of sharing news. But now all a person has to do is log on to their personal computer in the comfort of their home and the first thing that pops up when they get on to yahoo or AOL or whatever web browser they may be using are endless little news bulletins about current events, politics, sports, weather, etc. This totally routes most other outlets for news like newspapers and word of mouth which usually involve some type of interaction with someone that could be considered apart of your community. Whereas on the Internet you can do the same thing faster and more effectively without any interaction at all, not to mention the online community spans over language and culture boundaries instead of local communities that newspapers encompass. That being said, maybe that whole idea is not such a negative thing in the sense that it breaks down the community on the local level, because I would say that it builds a community on the global scale and breaks down the barriers of different nations and cultures and brings the world closer together. So whether or not the beast we know as the Internet is good for the community or not it is definitely necessary for our capitalist society to thrive in this age so we must either get used to it or fail to get ahead in today's globally aware society.