Online Community Experience

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Online Community Experience

In order to gain a better perspective of online communities I had no other choice but to join one. I looked at several different sites such as MSN.com and YAHOO.com that had discussion boards available to join but I just couldn’t find one that fit my interests. I then logged onto MTV.com where I found a discussion board all about my favorite TV show: The Real World. The board was a community of people who shared a common interest in the show and could come together to discuss its characters and storyline.

I am a faithful watcher of The Real World. The show is about seven very different people who are chosen to live together in a house for six months. Each season is set up in a different city. The cast members must get a job which is usually set up by the show and everything that they do is taped. The current season of The Real World is being aired in Las Vegas, Nevada. The cast has been given a job at a local night club where their main objective is to entertain the guests. The cast is taped while they are eating, sleeping, working, and playing. The tapes are then edited to a certain degree and aired every Tuesday night at ten o’clock p.m. It is a very controversial television show aired on MTV that brings up topics such as race, sex, and homosexuality.

This discussion board is in outlet for those who feel the need to voice their opinion to others who watch the show. People are drawn to the message board through their common interest in The Real World. In order to post on the discussion board the user must create a username but it is not necessary if you would just like to read the postings. The creation of a username is a way for people to show their self-expression or give the other members an idea of who they are. While reading posts you are able to see who is online at that exact moment. Another feature of this discussion board is that when you post a thread or respond to a posting, you can choose an icon or animation that describes your mood at that time. The icon appears next to your name in the posting display.

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