Knowledge Communities
A Basic Definition
A knowledge community is a group of people who come together to seek and share information, to solve problems collaboratively, or to support a cause or effort.
For example,
college students may form a group (knowledge community) to share information
about their class during the course of a semester.
This might include:
- lecture notes,
- questions about assignments,
- reminders about deadlines,
- invitations to join study groups,
- insights about course content, and/or
- support for upcoming tests and assignments.
Henry Jenkin’s Knowledge Community
Perspective
In Convergence Culture (2006), Henry
Jenkins elaborately describes knowledge communities from a perspective gained
through insights developed by French cybertheorist Pierre Lévy. Most
importantly, knowledge communities share a “collective intelligence,” which is “the
ability of virtual communities to leverage the combined expertise of their
members” (p. 27). Furthermore, “(m)embers may shift from one group to another
as their interests and needs change, and they may belong to more than one
community at a time. These communities,
however, are held together through the mutual production and reciprocal
exchange of knowledge” (p.27).
The Most Common Knowledge Community
Today, the largest and most-recognized knowledge community is
Wikipedia. In fact, it is so vast and representative of today's "new, new media" that Paul Levinson devoted an
entire chapter of New New Media to
this resource. In this community, “all
Wikipedians are equal, but some are more equal than others” (Levinson, p. 71). Everyone can contribute their knowledge on a
given source, however this knowledge is reviewed, edited, corrected, revised, and/or
deleted by other authors. Appointed
administrators act as regulators and mediators of content and disputes.
Pinterest as a Knowledge Community
Pinterest is
my favorite knowledge community because it is very diverse and has mass
appeal. Here, anyone can be an
author and can share information, ideas, and solutions with other members of
the Pinterest community.
This site is often thought of as a crafting site for stay-at-home white women, but if you dive
into the content, you will find more than how to make glitter embellished nightlights and chocolate cake. Rather, there is a
vast range of shared information, from:
- how to create a budget to how to manage a blog;
- from how to stop bullying to how to create a complete fitness routine; and from how to maintain your vehicle to how to lay tile in your bathroom.
Conversely, if a
user finds information to be valuable, the information can be shared by
reposting/re-Pinning the entry or by emailing or texting the link to another
person.
Furthermore, Pins can be
organized into Boards; and authors can post links to their Pins on other forms
of media, such as in a their blogs.
Users can also chose to follow their favorite Pinners. This doesn’t always mean that the Pinner
(being followed) has superior knowledge; rather, it may mean that they provide
more valuable or popular Pins. This
allows each Pinner to develop a unique community around his/her interests, and
he/she may participate in multiple sub-communities at the same time.
Visit this
link for a sample of Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doanyelle/
Characteristics of Knowledge Communities
Based upon
the Pinterest model, a knowledge community:
- typically interacts online;
- has technical support and frequent updates to maintain its online site;
- allows anyone to be a contributor, as long as the contributions have value;
- is fluid, meaning that members may come and go at will, or as their needs arise and ebb;
- has some measure of accountability for content; and
- shares common likes and interests, while often exploring new ideas and concepts.
This is different
than mass culture, as mass culture is “broadcast or otherwise distributed
to individuals instead of arising from their day-to-day interactions with each
other. Thus, mass culture generally
lacks the unique content of local communities….” (Cheg.com).
Final Thought…
More and more, we rely on each other as
sources of information, because we recognize that when we pool information, we
are more likely to gain more knowledge (minimally) and we have more influence by being part of the community (maximally). Thus, by sharing your
insight and perspectives on knowledge communities as part of this post, we can
begin to create our own knowledge community!
References
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence
culture: Where old and new media
collide. New York, NY: New
York University
Press.
Levinson, P. (2014).
New new media (Second edition). New York, NY: Pearson.
Mass Culture (definition). Retrieved on July 11, 2016 from
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