Listening is a key element in building and maintaining diverse, informed and engaged online communities. Virtual communities play a central role in modeling behaviors and best practices for citizens to participate in a healthy and thriving democracy.
If people are given the proper education to function in our virtual worlds - and they're informed about how to build and participate in healthy online communities - we can empower principled centered people and businesses to locate data, interpret it, create meaning, and disseminate relevant knowledge.
In order to achieve this a solid education in new media literacy, including an equal emphasis on listening to speaking in our virtual worlds, is critical. Only then can citizens empower themselves to help shape collective reality of the masses.
In the book Listening, Wolven and Coakley outline that factors that influence the quality and effectiveness of the communication process include variables such as skill, knowledge, attitudes, frame of reference, message structure and context, language code and symbolism, channel selection and environment.
William and Coakley lay out a compelling argument that listening is undervalued, under taught, and little understood in reference to its importance in the communication process and the shaping of the self and community (William and Coakley, 1996). I agree with their assessment and further assert that research around these subjects is even sparser in relation to communicating in virtual communities.
One can view the role of the “speaker” in virtual communities as the person posting the link to a form of media, or status update containing some thought or opinion. The role of the “listener” comes into play when you attempt to disseminate and make sense of the information shared in your virtual communication networks and communities.
I agree with many communication scholars who assert the subjugation of the role of the listener to the role of the speaker in the communication process is more harmful than ever, especially online.
Our physical world is increasingly integrated with our virtual world. People are doing more things, and spending more time on the Internet. We are constantly bombarded with information presented on various media platforms that are shared in our virtual networks online. It is harder than ever to confirm the validity or relevance of much of this data.
Our physical world is increasingly integrated with our virtual world. People are doing more things, and spending more time on the Internet. We are constantly bombarded with information presented on various media platforms that are shared in our virtual networks online. It is harder than ever to confirm the validity or relevance of much of this data.
For example, advertising is targeted to our personal Facebook pages that are specifically tailored to our individual tastes, based off information mined from our online habits. Further, we are exposure to a world where an abundance of information and ideas are spread virally and much of this data is untested, unverified, or flat out false.
It is critical that listeners take responsibility for filtering, and making sense of all this data so they can make informed decisions for their life. They must help construct meaning and reality for the masses and protect and cultivate democracy.
In this effort, one cannot underestimate the power of our virtual communities, (such as Facebook or Twitter), and the role they play in the spread of ideas, information and meaning creation.
In the article Listening and Community: The Role of Listening in Community Formation, Michael Purdy highlights how communities form around what we have in common with others in our group and “through listening we interpret, share in and give personal meaning to that commonality. We also help create and shape the essence of the community in the interpretive process of listening.”
The role that community serves in teaching us who we are, and what our role in society is, cannot be understated. Purdy goes onto make a compelling case for the need to equalize the role of speaker and listener in Western culture in order to empower proactive, informed, critical citizens rather than cultivate a public dependent on the authority of the speaker (Purdy).
I believe this theory to be especially salient when considering how the nature of communication is changing in the new online media age. On the Internet, it’s possible to find a group for dog lovers who like to Tango, or bikers who enjoy knitting which is what makes online communities so compelling. People are better able to identify and interact with like-minded individuals and form communities around common interests.
Having common interests does not mean having the same political, spiritual, or other like qualities. We are exposed to more viewpoints and perspectives than ever before in human history.
Having common interests does not mean having the same political, spiritual, or other like qualities. We are exposed to more viewpoints and perspectives than ever before in human history.
The role of the listener in this environment is to filter through the barrage of data and stimuli we encounter on the Internet and interpret, discover meaning, and disseminate relevant knowledge, as well as expose and admonish inaccurate or misleading data.
Works Cited
Purdy, Michael. "Listening and Community: The Role of Listeing in Community Formation." Journal of the Internatinal Listening Association: 51-67. Print.
Wolvin, Andrew D. Listening. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill, 1996. Print
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