This past summer I participated in a program that slightly resembled a summer camp of sorts, which is actually a program for college students looking for an internship. This was an interesting community to become a part of because it was a specific program for students at four-year universities who are interested in finding an internship in virtually any given field, and want the help of this program to find an internship in the city of their choice. Basically, you applied specifically to the program, you would choose your city of interest (NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Barcelona, or London), the industry you're interested in (I chose the film/entertainment industry for example), and once accepted into the program, they help you find an internship that best fits your needs and desires, they train you on how to put together a resume and conduct an interview, and they provide you with housing, roommates, and weekly seminars and weekend activities. This was something that I became interested in because I knew I wanted to get a film internship in LA, but I had never been out on the west coast and I was honestly scared to go out to LA all by myself with no other assistance, so I applied to this program, I got an internship at Warner Bros. studios, housing at UCLA, great roommates and weekend activities (wine tours, Dodger games, Las Vegas, etc.), and it reminded me a lot of my experiences at summer camp simply because it placed such an emphasis on the strong community aspect.
Haythornwaite (2007) defines a community as consisting of social networks, common ground, and reciprocity, all of which were essential elements to my summer community. First of all, the community is based on a social network, which Haythornwaite (2007) states are "built of the foundation of actors who are connected or tied by the maintenance of one or more relations" (p. 126) In this program, we all enter into it in different ways as individual actors who, once accepted into the program, are immediately tied to the other actors that are accepted into the program, as well as the staff of the program that accept us into the program and become our mentors. At this point, our assigned mentor who helps us with the initial process of finding an internship becomes our strong tie, who connects us with the other staff and applicants who are at that point our weak ties because we have little or no direct contact with them in the beginning.
Our group also shared the common ground aspect, because we all applied to the program for essentially the same reasons, in order to find assistance in getting a summer internship and housing in a perhaps unfamiliar city, and we were essentially all interested in becoming a part of that social network so that it would be easier for us to navigate our new surroundings throughout the summer. We all became committed to each other because we all had the common goal of getting a great internship and having a great summer experience together which allowed us to form a group identity from the start.
And finally, we experienced the reciprocity aspect because the basis of the community in general was really helping each other. When we were accepted to the program, we were all immediately given great assistance in putting together a resume, finding a great internship and completing a successful interview process. We were all also essentially new to the experience and the community, and all wanted to enjoy the summer together, so we aimed to reinforce one another as members of the same community, attempting to form relationships and friendships that would be the basis of our summer community. The combination of all these efforts and perhaps the greatest advantage of becoming a part of this community was the social capital that it provided, because just by applying to this internship, we were immediately tied to all the other individuals that would be in our program with us that summer, and that would become a part of our network simply by association and shared values and goals. We all knew that this social capital, or added value of the community, was that we were all becoming a part of this social network with the common goal of eventually finding job resources, and since we were all tied together by the program, we would all act as this sort of connective resource for one another in the future, particularly regarding the job search process later on.
However, perhaps the most interesting element of this community were its online/offline synergies. This community is therefore definitely what Haythornwaite (2007) defines as a latent tie network, "on which ties may be initiated and can (potentially) grow into strong ties" (p. 130). This applies so well to my summer program community because we were all essentially tied weakly to the other members of the program in the beginning. We were tied closest to our assigned roommates, which we all obviously facebooked as soon as possible, and we began to attempt to form closer ties in this CMC fashion. We were all tied together as an online community in the beginning, where the group forum would be the space that we shared through which we were connected, and this CMC community was how we were all tied together initially.
However, when the summer started, the community became primarily a FtF community, in which our strong ties (typically our roommates) became stronger, we all lived in a housing complex together as a program, we went on weekend trips and took seminars together every week, and hung our virtually every night. We became a FtF community because we all applied to this program which was initially a mostly CMC community where we were only tied through the online group forum. However, after the summer ended and FtF interactions among the group were for the most part no longer possible, the community reverted back to a CMC community, this time held together by a facebook group and listserve, which allow us to all stay connected to one another, to maintain the group network ties, and allow us to easily contact one another if need be.
Therefore, the group community remains so strong, because our weak ties originate from the CMC community, both our strong and weak ties were strengthened by our FtF interactions all summer long, and then both our strong and weak ties were maintained by continuing the CMC community via facebook and a listserve. I therefore believe that this community most resembles the Gemeinschaft community perspective because we were all virtual strangers who had a common summer goal, and allowed the program to connect all of us via an online network, shared social activities, the community was based on strong interpersonal ties that became strongest because of the extensive FtF interactions, the shared focus and purpose for the summer and the program itself, and the common language that was shared and understood by the community because of our shared goals for the summer.
Therefore, I think this community became so strong because of its successful forging of weak ties via a CMC online forum community, its reinforcing of strong ties via extensive FtF group interactions and activities as well as facebook, and its maintenance of these ties via added CMC online community by means of a facebook group and listserve newsletters and group updates. Overall, it was a great experience, and I feel closely tied to even the actors to which I am tied the weakest to, simply because the program was so good at reinforcing these ties and emphasizing the importance of having a strong social network which we all add to and take from.
In case you're interested, here's the website for the program (really cheesy name but amazing experience):
http://summerinternships.com/
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2 comments:
Neither essays we read touched heavily upon this sort of interest-based synergistic community. That's not unexpected -- your summer internship network was formed rapidly by a group of people formerly unknown to each other. Despite these circumstances, the Social Network Analysis method would be a suitable lens to review the communal aspects of the summer program. The program was a Dense network (of strong and weak ties), contained Homophily (common ground), and shared resources (business/social connecions).
According to your post, the synergy between FtF and CMC played a vital role in maintaining community relations after the summer ended. I've found summer's abrupt closure to be best overcome by CMC; I imagine if telephony and the occasional FtF meet was all I had to maintain summer connections, they'd probably have ended come November.
Wow, very comprehensive post, well done! Your post touches upon some very important issues that I too found in my community which I described. You discuss how both strong ties and weak ties are evident in your community and how the weak ties are primarily formed in CMC but yet still contribute a great deal to the community. Having both strong and weak ties can be important in a community, especially when it deals with internships and jobs. It’s nice to have the balance of being close to people with similar interests while still retaining the benefits of weak ties – more job opportunities. I also agree that summer friendships are often best maintained, or at least most frequently maintained online. After attending summer camps and summer programs nearly all my life, I too have found that it is the most common form of communication we turn to, to keep in touch.
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