Community...what, where and when is it?

The idea of community gets tossed around in a lot of different contexts these days. First, there's the traditional sense of community that involves neighborhoods and cities. In this sense, the term "community" refers to a sense of place. However with the rise of the Internet, a new sense of community is becoming popular.

What this new type of community signifies is a shift in day-to-day interactions among groups of people. No longer are we confined to our physical community for interaction. Now, we can log online and chat with someone halfway around the world about a shared interest or current event.

New programs like Second Life and World of Warcraft have created an online culture that relies on interaction among people, even though they never meet in person.

But there are several implications of this new notion of community. First, it shows a cultural shift to life online. Second, it shows our new found reliance on technology to conduct our everyday activities.

However, for the sake of this blog, I want to focus on the implications this trend has on the media. Newspapers have continually focused on national and international news to sell papers. After decades of this type of coverage, their sales are plummet ting. In my opinion, readers are looking for local news coverage. National and international news should be left for large news sources such as CNN and the NY Times. As a result, local bloggers, and other new media users that are familiar with the new notion of "community," have started filling in the missing, "local" peg that newspapers so desperately lack.