SWA4

Ideas and Facebook
David Friedman’s blog “Ideas” is very different from my facebook. The differences mainly come in the area of the text. The purpose of my, or most other facebooks is mainly social, while Mr. Friedman’s blog is a forum to discuss new ideas and strategies, such as the idea of an automated window opening system based on the external and internal temperatures of a house. There are, however, differences and similarities in all five TRACE fields
The text has the most obvious differences. As previously stated, the purpose is completely different. A facebook page has information about the author of the page, as well as a list of “friends,” and the world renowned wall. The blog “Ideas” did have a small section about the author, with a link to more information, but that was not a main component of the page. The bulk of the page was a post by the Mr. Friedman, and the reader responses. Similarities were few and far between, but the main one I saw was the reader comments alongside of the wall. While the former is more structured and purposed, and the latter more random and social, both contain comments by the readers of the blog, and normally without author interference, at least not on the same page.
The audience category holds the main amount of similarity between my facebook and Mr. Friedman’s blog. In this particular post on Mr. Friedman’s blog the audience seems very in tune with the lingo, therefore making it a discourse community. Likewise, the audience for my facebook is made up of people who I either live with currently on campus, or have spent a fair amount of time with previously, and thereby also constitute a discourse community. The differences only come into effect when you look at the nature of the discourse communities. Friedman’s blog is made up of people, who probably do not know each other discussing ideas in order to accomplish a purpose or task. In retrospect, my facebook is made up of people, most of which know each other, and are simply discussing things for the sake of discussing them and to experience socialization with others in the same discourse group.
The author section obviously holds great differences, but there were some similarities. The motivation of Mr. Friedman is to spread his ideas to a broad base of people, while my motive when creating a facebook was to communicate with people that I already know, or am soon going to know. Certain similarities did surface in the credentials of both authors, as stated in the “About me” section of Friedman’s blog, he has not taken a course for credit in either of the fields that he most commonly practices. So officially his credentials while writing the blog are about the same as mine for my facebook. The difference is that no one expects someone to have certain training or knowledge before trusting something on their facebook, while a blog with technical ideas is more likely to be trusted and it would be expected that the author was trustworthy.
There are several similarities when it comes to the constraints of both the blog and my facebook. These similarities come into play in the “wall” or “comments” area. The basic constraint is the author’s lack of response within the page. While the author may respond directly to the comments of readers, it is not usually located directly on the page, and is handled separately, and sometimes privately. The one difference I see in the constraints is that author’s don’t respond for different reasons. On facebook you don’t respond because writing on your own wall is socially unacceptable, and you should instead create a new post on the reader’s own wall. On Mr. Friedman’s blog he does not respond most likely because he wants to allow his readers to debate among themselves without his interference, in order to get a more non-biased opinion of his ideas.
Exigence is an interesting category in this argument, mainly because most facebooks, at least mine, do not address a specific argument. Mr. Friedman’s blog was caused by a search for a cheap way to cool a house. The only thing close to an argument that my facebook displays is the problem of communication, which it solves very well. So while maybe not in perfect definition, exigence is still a factor between the two to an extent.
So while the differences clearly outweigh the similarities in the two types of forums discussed here, there are some distinct similarities. Most importantly both are a means of networking and communicating. While the internet is often associated with the evils of scamming, impulse buying, and hundreds of other things, part of it is still good, and these good things will continue to fuel the advocates of a more social, internet based world that can accommodate both progressive thinking and socialization.