Practicum 8

For my final practicum post and as I have finalized my thoughts on my experience, I wanted to share how impressed I was with an online activist community. I personally choose to join Breast Cancer Research Advocacy groups because it has been a cause important to me, my friends and family. By joining these groups and following forums and walls, discussions, and news sources I felt like I was much more informed and part of a new community. In particular I felt that the democracy through the groups was an important and defining feature that attributes to much of the success that has come from these groups. It gave me quick and easy information, a diversified group, division of power that everyone here was as an equal and could do what they wanted and it allowed for communication within the members. It amazed me to see how much could be done online with the assistance of the Internet and these groups.
I personally chose to follow more than contribute because I am not as active outside of the online community as many other members are, but I still felt the benefits of joining a group. I was still able to participate by posting links that I found helpful, or clicking links posted by others and signing petitions but my personal actions towards the cause went as far as that.
I also looked at the way members chose to communicate with each other in order to see how dedicated and activists used online groups. I found that because this is generally a one sided activist group that the members were very encouraging and supportive of what other people had to say. For instance when I started a forum topic about a news break about Chicago's health care, I was flooded with responses that had to do with the discontent about the current situation and news updates about what was happening.
From doing this project and becoming an active follower of this group it has given me the opportunity to see how much could be accomplished on the internet. Although it may not be the most popular thing on the internet, it still shows how involved people can be outside of the physical reality and how much is being moved to the internet and the virtual community.