For assignment number 7, I chose option number one. Using the SNA attributes, I decided to choose my family as the community to identify and describe. My family includes my father, mother, two younger sisters, and my younger brother. Nodes extend from my family that I live with to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents…you get the picture.
I believe that my family relates to Gemeinshacft’s explanation of community because we are bonded by strong interpersonal ties, we share focuses, have a common purpose, language and identity. Our relationships “crisscross and reinforce one another” and have commitment towards a “shared set of values, mores, meanings, and a shared historical identity” (Etzioni & Etzioni, 1999). For example, we all support one another, we all believe in respecting our elders, we all use our manners, and we, of course, share cousins and grandparents and uncles. We spend a lot of time with one another, which further reinforces our strong bonds. We stay connected through face to face interaction when we are all together, and over the phone and internet when we apart (for example: when my Dad is traveling or when I’m away at school) and we attend and watch each others sports games.
In regards to whether or not CMC affects my family as a community, it does. CMC interactions allow me to keep in touch and up to date with my family while I’m away at school – for example, I’ll regularly email my Dad because I know he’ll check his email before picking up his cell phone while he’s working, I send my Mom email from time to time because she just learned how to use and gets excited when someone writes to her, and I constantly talk with my sisters and brothers on AIM. Without CMC interaction, my contact time with my family would be greatly reduced.
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