For members in an online community, they take on the roles of writers and readers at the same time. The interesting thing is that although they are like comments as writers, they also seldom comment on others as readers. This is easy to be interpreted as just selfish act. but I think there should be something deeper. For example, it can be associated with

• knowledge ( e.g. I don’t know much about what he/she is talking about, so better keep my mouth shut.)
• habit ( e.g. I prefer to write commentary on my own blog. )
• technology threshold (e.g. I need to log in to comment? Why bother.)
• perceptions (e.g. I simply have nothing to comment on. )
• preference (e.g. I don’t want others to see my comment. I will shoot the write an email.)

On the other hand, there are some motivators for commenting act:

• rule of reciprocity ( e.g. This post is really useful. The guy left me a comment, I’d better leave him one as well.)
• clarification (e.g. I don’t quite understand, better ask. )

The dialog on blog space is enabled by commenting. The problem with commenting is that it tend to be the conversation between individual commenter and the blogger. It will be hard for commenter A to talk to commentor B. In addition, commenting tends to be one-shot affair. Often people just leave comments and never bother or don’t remember to check back. Thus it will be rare to see the sort of back and forth in the dynamic interaction. Another potential problem with commenting is the duplicates. For example, if I read an interesting blog which already has 100 comments. I might not have to go through all the comments or question, but just jump to post my comments or question which might already been raised and addressed.

The social interaction enabled by blogs are highly asymmetrical. If we draw an analogy between discussion forum and a meeting where every participants have equal opportunity to expression their opinion; then blogs are like press conference. The opinion exchanged are centered on the topic initiated by the chair and all the questions/comments are addressed to him/her.

• A physically community extending to online space
• An online community extending to physical sphere

The type of hybrid community to my interest is the former one. These type of hybrid communities stem from the physical s  are drastically different from the online communities. First, the use of anonymous or false identity is rare. Since people already know each other in real life, the online identity basically mirrors their real ones.

I like the way to conceptualize online/offline relationships as the online and offline representations of a community. Then, the question arises here is how the online and offline representations of a community interplay? Are they overlapping or alternating each other?

Some envisages the hybrid community as two parallel layers of a community. These two layers are not independent of each other, but related. However, online representation is not just a copy or analogue of the material world. The virtual world could afford new ways of representations.

Terry Anderson argues that

perhaps the best ESS (Educational social software) combines ego and object centric features allowing learners and teachers to build on both types through social exchange of their artifacts and their personalities.

Further, Terry adds on another category of social network sites specific to the educational context: adhoc transient communities, that is, communities with fluid memberships. For adult learners in the self-paced study, a stable community is very difficult to take shape due to their unsynchronized learning progress. In this circumstances, learners need to be in and out different sub-communities based on their needs.

Reflecting back on the blog community I intend to build in my study. I wonder what type it should belong to.  It’s a mixture of both ego and object-centric. Students had interact in the blogosphere because 1) they know and care about each other; 2) they are engaged in the same practice and the content of blog is close to their heart. But I don’t want this blog-supported community to be transient. The ideal situation might be that students cultivate the habit of blogging, sharing and reflecting through this project so that they can continue blogging even after the project ends.

Groups require unity, networks require diversity. Groups require
coherence, networks require autonomy. Groups require privacy or
segregation, networks require openness. Groups require focus of voice,
networks require interaction. The group I am with right now is very
intent on being a group. That doesn’t interest me. I have no wish to
lose my identity and my freedom, my empowerment. Because a group is
subject to this very objection – backlash, groupthink, the works. But a
network is not.”

The online community set on discussion forum are usually clearly bounded communities with authentication, registration, etc. The new type of online community in blogosphere makes it imperative to study the change in individual and collective identify, power and control. The balance between the individual and the group has to be redefined.

White also categorised blog community into three groups: one blog centric, topic centric and boundaried community. For each type, the power structure and community dynamics are different. She further contrast the three categories from the perspective of technical architecture, social architecture and content.

However, the blog-supported learning community in my study can’t fit into any of the category. It’s kinda like both single blog centric and topic-centric. The community blog serves the role as the central node of the community. But this central role was not organically emergent, but initiated in a top-down fashion. In addition to the tension between group and individual blogger, the tension between top-down intervention and bottom-up emergence of community also becomes complicated in blog community.

Robin Hamman also categorized blog community into three kinds: closed blogs, blogs as conduit of information and blog as conversation. In light of this,  the blog-supported community among preservice teachers in my study seems both closed blogs and blogs as conversation.