Gift Economy

Gift Economy in sociolgy is an interesting concept to understand. There are different aspects of this economy and they include, identity, ongoing interactions, and history. The public good which when its shared does not produce its quality. With the public good we realize that it is generalized reciprocity, and within our group we hope for change. For example, with identity in the gift economy, one will be more likely to do a random act of kindness for someone that they know. We have all see those bumper stickers that say, "Do a random act of kindness today." This relates to the gift economy.

After reading about the history of the gift economy it was interesting to see how much has changed since 21 years ago with the economy and its ways. Richard Barbrook stated, "How has the hi-tech gift economy evolved since 1998, when the paper was written? This article was a product of its time. When I originally wrote The Hi-Tech Gift Economy, the Net was still a novelty for most people even in the developed world. Nearly 8 years later, using this technology is no longer something special. This means that it is impossible to understand my article without remembering the bizarre moment in the late-1990s when so many pundits believed that the Net had almost magical powers. Led by Wired, dotcom boosters were claiming that the Net was creating the free market only found up to then in neo-classical economics textbooks. Inspired by post-modernist gurus, new media activists were convinced that humanity would soon liberate itself from corporate control by escaping into cyberspace." (Barbrook 1).

The gift economy is not a new term. People have heard it throughout their life in different scenarios. Some of us understand that the gift economy can be related with the internet and the giving of one to another without expecting a type of payment in return. The web continues to be this type of machine that sucks all information up and bonds it together to help people like us who surf it and want to recieve knowledge and information.

Social Capital

Social capital is a difficult concept. It is not how we are used to thinking about how capital is accumulated. You aquire social capital through communiation. You have to strengthen and sometimes even weaken relationships. You build things called communication pathways through social capital. It is about the amount of connections you have, where it comes from. Social capital is not a concrete thing. It is an effect that merges through social interaction. The effect can be deployed, but it is quite interesting because unlike financial capital where you can spend 50 dollars and have nothing after, with social capital if you spend it, then you have more.

One blog spoke about social capital and the Influence of Social networks which was interesting to see what others thought. The author states, "Someone once asked me if reputation is interchangeable with Social Capital. Yes and no. To me, reputation is merely a dimension of Social Capital, not truly interchangeable. Social Capital is much more complex and includes:
connections, reputation, influence, bridging capital - the number of connections you have across to different industries, social strata, etc.
bonding capital - the depth of your close connections (how close and how much you could ask of your connections) (Hunt 1).

I believe this is a good point to include because one needs to understand the concept before he/she can express it.

Through sociotechnical capital opportunities emerge. It is through this where we learn about sociotechincal capital. Emotional support and value should also be included when discussing this term. Shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil are types of shows that emotional support and value are all included. In the audences of these shows, they have to all have something in common, and that provides the opportunity for sharing and trust.

Cyberspace

John Coate's essay with Cyberspace and Building an Online Community explains the online community and what it consits of. Coate states, "The first two entries of "community" in the American Heritage Dictionary call it 1.) a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government; and 2.) a group of people having common interests. If you believe the "space" part of "cyberspace," and you consider that a Terms of Service for use of an online service could be called a kind of government, then #1 works in the online realm. Second, consider that "common interests" are the only real reason that people get online to communicate, then #2 works well too. Make a hybrid of these two and it gives a pretty good working definition of "online community" (Coate 1). So, what does this definition mean to an online community. Its definition is strong meaning that the space could be the "cyber space."

Today, we see so many different online communities like second life, many people are now on twitter, facebook, and the previous big hit was facebook. Many find it easier to communicate through the computer because it is not that there is a face to face conversation, rather you are online and you could be technically who you want to be. As the essay states, being online attracts open minded independent people. It is for people who love wordplay, language and writing.

The mind pool is also an important topic talked about in Coate's essay. He states, "The mind pool: When it works right, an online gathering is a kind of organized mind pool. Everyone picks each other's brains. The informal nature of online conversation encourages people's amazing generosity in sharing the things that they know. It's a potluck for the mind" (Coate 1).

Everyday there is a new person who visit the online community to get a taste of the virtual world. Many people become addicted which continues for an ongoing period, and they even start lives through the internet, which is known as the website second life.

In conclusion, it is a topic that seems very new to people, but the internet is not virtually as new as everyone thinks. It does have a history and many do not know about.

Putnam's Studies

Robert D. Putnam studied many different aspects of the social structure and conducted different studies in places like Italy. Putnam had a strong feeling on social structure and believed that, one needs social skills to move up with capital. The social structure is constituted by people. Putnam believed that if one does not like their social structure, it is not that that they disapprove rather the people in that social structure. "Social capital is key to high institutional performance and the maintenance of democracy" (Putnam). In Putnam's book which he wrote after studying in Italy consisted of,"The the performance of twenty regional Italian governments since 1970, which were similar institutions but differed in their social, economic and cultural context. They found that regional government performed best, holding other factors constant, where there were strong traditions of civic engagement" (Wikipedia). The book was titled, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.

One author by the name of LaPalombara stated, "Overall, Roger Putnam's book tends to "reinforce the conviction of those in Italy who believe that ... the regional reforms of the early 1970's have been largely a failure." (LaPalombara 550) At the same time, he is servicing the larger debate on democratization by forwarding his own views on civic virtue as a motivator for the success of democratic institutions. While some criticism is leveled against his theories, reviewers tend to respect and value his conclusions, if not wholly accept them" (LaPalombara 550).

There is plenty of information from this study that Putnam recieved after studying some of the democracy work from modern Italy. In conclusion, Putnam has also written other books like Bowling Alone which has to do with how their is a lack in civic, social and political life since the 1960's which was also a big hit of Putnam. Putnam is also involved with recent activity taking place and has spoke about how Britain may have a British Obama.

"The Daily We," Filters, and Everything in Between

After reviewing the article, "The Daily We," there were alot of instances that came to my attention in terms of technology and some of the caution behind technology and its filters. In society the two spheres that first come to mind are the public and private sphere. The public as in the word is open to the public where everyne can acess your information, whereas the private sphere is only for a select group who are within the private sphere.

Through the internet today people are learning alot more then what they knew many years ago, but this technology is also opening new doors. Today, you can access your bank account, credit card account, television bill, house mortgage, and many other expensive private things through the web. So, what's saying that the information that you're looking at is not being looked at by the government or in fact anyone in general.

Next, is the topic of filters. The author, Cass R. Sunstein, of the article, "The Daily We" states, "I want to raise a note of caution. I do so by emphasizing one of the most striking powers provided by emerging technologies: the growing power of consumers to "filter" what they see. As a result of the Internet and other technological developments, many people are increasingly engaged in a process of "personalization" that limits their exposure to topics and points of view of their own choosing. They filter in, and they also filter out, with unprecedented powers of precision" (Sunstein 1). This is where I believe we see the biggest problem. This creates that feeling of disbelief and feeling that there is something always behind the scenes that is probably not being shown.

Our communications market seems to be at a utopian level meaning we have democratization which is only one aspect of it, compared to the pessimist approach which looks at inequality, loss of atonomy, commodification etc. We have more of a utopian level through our communications market so everything is open to one another.

Group polarization is, "The idea is that after deliberating with one another, people are likely to move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which they were previously inclined, as indicated by the median of their predeliberation judgments. With respect to the Internet, the implication is that groups of people, especially if they are like-minded, will end up thinking the same thing that they thought before—but in more extreme form. Group polarization is a human regularity, but social context can decrease, increase, or even eliminate it" (Sunstein 4). This is occurring every day on the internet.

The media has amazed humans since its beginning roots, but as technology continues to grow with media and everything else around it, we are amazed and sometimes almost scared on how much it can actually do.