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Community2: "reciprocity" and technological mediation
According to Ursula Franklin (1999), asynchronicity involves the “decoupling of activities from their functional time or space patterns” (p. 150)--a characteristic she very much associates with technologically mediated communication. Communication mediated by technology is a “form of technologically executed inequality” (p. 43) owing to the inability of users to provide personalised, situational responses. In Franklin’s analysis, online discussion forums, for example, become “prescriptive technologies” (p. 16) encouraging compliance rather than expression. What technologically mediated communication lacks, according to Franklin, is reciprocity: “some manner of interactive give and take, a genuine communication among interacting parties” (p. 42). In general, she argues, "technical arrangements reduce or eliminate reciprocity" (p. 42).
Given these criteria, virtual environments are only “pseudocommunities” (p. 42) whose existence militates against real social experiences. Virtual environments can never give rise to "real" or "genuine" communities. Though Franklin does not explicitly define "real" or "genuine," she strongly implies a dependence on live interactions among people physically located in the same space.
OPTIONAL READING: For more about Ursula Franklin's views on technology and community, you'll find an articulate, reliable synposis of Franklin's 1990 CBC Massey Lecture (on which The Real World of Technology is based) by Krista Scott-Dixon. Choose Ursula Franklin from the left-hand menu, then scroll down to Chapter Two. Or you can borrow the book from the U of W Library.
Franklin doesn't entirely reject the notion that technology can help us make positive connections. However, she calls on us to re-examine the social effects of technology and to think critically about ways technology helps, hinders, and fundamentally changes community forming.
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