Fostering interaction and creating a community
After talking about how to technically write a blog and what to include in a blog to make it fun, in this page, I want to discuss what my blog is for.
In addition to illustrate and record my boring daily life just in case I sadly suffer from memory disease in the future, another major reason for digital publishing is to create a community and invite like-minded people to join me. The benefit of digital world is that there is no physical boundary or limitation of the community, which maximizes the quantity and variety of community members. By this, my readers could be from anywhere around the world and communicate with me in real time in the comment area no matter which time zone he or she is in.
The concept of digital society has been widely discussed since the 1990s, when people call it ‘the information age’ or ‘information revolution’ (Gates, 1995, p. 21). Undeniably, technology and internet have made major changes to people’s daily life and many norms, such as writing and reading, have been influenced greatly. For example, the media has changed from physical materials to digital formats; the way people criticize a literal work has become more direct and personal because a reader can easily and quickly comment or communicate with the author online. As Martin argues, skills developed in digital world have formed ‘digital literacy’. Utilizing digital tools, people are able to ‘identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyze and synthesize digital resources… and communicate with others’ (2008, p. 166-167).
Practically, I think 3 points are worth mentioning when creating an online community. Firstly, it is important to show the passion so like-minded people can agree with me. In addition to keep adding more smiley face pictures in my blog, I want to start a #gogosmile challenge online and encourage more people to share smiley faces under this hashtag. This small hashtag is so powerful that it connects every member together. Secondly, being meaningful and filling a need are of equal significance, from the perspective of resonance. As I mentioned, smiley face is a magical sign to lighten people up and its simplicity enables people to get rid of the mass of information online and have some peaceful me-time. In the end, always add value to the community. By this, I will add more sessions in this blog, such as fun facts of smiley faces, its history and how it is used in different industries. I want to make a fun Wikipedia of smiley faces and it is the community that I create and invite people to build with me.
References
Martin, A. (2008). Digital literacy and the “digital society”. Digital literacies: Concepts, policies and practices, 30, p. 151-176.
Gates, B. (1995). The road ahead. London: Viking Penguin.
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