Civic engagement
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
In Robert Putman's The Strange Disappearance of Civic America he uses the terms "social capital" and "civic engagement" to quantify and qualify the social relationships that people have with their community,. He defines, "social capital,' (as) features of social life--networks, norms, and trust--that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives." While, "the term 'civic engagement' …refer(s) to people's connections with the life of their communities, not only with politics." Both of these terms speak to the abilities that a person has to become engage in the surrounding community. While Putman concludes that the lack of civic America is due to the influence of television it could just as likely be blamed on one of the many technological advances that we have made over the last forty years. With each new advancement (radio, phones, television, internet) we have been able to communicate a with a growing number of people and each technological advancement makes more and more like it is a real person there. Allowing us to forget that we are becoming more and more isolated as we no longer feel the need to seek out new real human beings in our actual physical lives. In terms of the internet it seems possible that civic engagement could be increases with the use of technology. Communities have the ability to form and interact on the internet and it could be possible to take the civic work and place it online so that collaboration would be possible however; since the internet is a non-physical place there is likely to be less social capital present. The norms, patters and habits of an individual are not accurately represented on the internet since so much of that is a physical feature. A person in a virtual world can often choose to be anyone they want to be and engage in activities that they would not engage in in real life. There is usually very little regulation on behaviors on the internet and at the worst one may be kick off a site but there is no connection between other communities on the internet. The separated nature of the internet allows a person to be chatting with their mother in one window and peruse child pornography in another window; and never the two world will meet. This lack of connection between user and action allows actions on the internet to be temporary and do not reflect the real physical world; because of this it will always be a poor and isolating form of "public" expression.
