I believe that Twitter is both a community and a lifestyle enclave. Yes, this might sound a little weird, how can something be both, but depending on different things, such as your hashtags or your security settings, I believe it can be both.
If you security setting is on public, it is a community. In this setting, anyone is allowed to follow you, leaving it open for you to be in whatever community your followers want you to be in. You chose to be on Twitter, and because of this setting, you are allowing people to choose to be in your community because you cannot tell them they can not be in your community in this setting.
On the other hand, if you place your twitter account on private, this would be a lifestyle enclave. This is because you choose and decide who will be in your community. In a lifestyle enclave, you choose the people you want to be associate with based on your self image. In the private setting, you are allowed to do this. People who would like to follow you have to get your permission to follow you, allowing you to say no to people you do not want to be affiliated with, making in a lifestyle enclave.
Also trending hashtags on Twitter create lifestyle enclaves. At the current moment #BellLetsTalk is trending. This is an enclave, because if you hashtag this, in which case Bell Canada will donate five cents for every tweet to mental health initiatives and programs in Canada, you are deciding to associate with this group. You are choosing to associate with this hashtag based on the self image you are trying to portray.
In conclusion, Twitter, like most groups online, is what you make it. It can me a community if you decided to open up and let it be. It can be a lifestyle enclave if decided to make it more private or if you hashtag. But regardless, it gives you the choice to decided which you would like to be apart of, so maybe it is just an enclave that tries to portray itself as a community.
I like this basic approach to the question. Yes, sites can incorporate both poles of community/lifestyle enclave. However, I wonder if the "privacy" settings is the entirety of the question. I think the notion of "following" vs. "liking" (on FB) is worth thinking about. There is no block when it comes to following someone, while the concept of calling someone a "friend" is a higher bar.
ReplyDelete