There are many different blog sites, some of the most used being www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com, www.livejournal.com, or www.tumblr.com, but the list is truly endless. Each blog has its own ‘feel’ or character: some are more conducive to photo blogging, others to writing, some are easier to use while others allow for more flexibility in rewriting in editing the HTML. These differences cater to different members, depending on where their interests and intentions for the blog lay. Within these blog sites, members can make blogs that generally have an overarching and uniting theme. These can be broad or specific (anywhere from ‘Spirituality’ to ‘Travel’): posts, links, photos, are cohesive and indicate the interest or inclination of the blogger.
Similarly, neighborhoods tend to be groups of like-minded individuals. Certain districts or areas within a city attract a certain type of people, who come together to form a community that bases itself on and strives toward a common understanding. Thus we can see that blogs and neighborhoods have striking similarities in the way that they form communities by uniting common interests. The metaphor might also say that blog sites represent lager areas such as cities or countries (which attract a vast range of members with varied interests, and within which form particulars).
The systems of ideas that govern blogs and neighborhoods form differently, creating different kinds of communities, with different values. In a blog, the system is given a theme that is more or less cohesive and adhered to in any posts made by the blogger. The blogger tends to create a community with other like-minded bloggers by ‘following’ them or ‘reblogging’ their posts. The ideas of the system are thus created and communicated directly, attracting like-minded individuals who can engage with the blog. There are two important interactions in this system: the other blogs that a blogger follows, and the interaction between the blogger and those that view and comment on the blog. This interaction rarely involves physical presence, and so the community is formed almost solely virtually, in a realm of words and pictures. Inherent in this system is the presence of a perpetrator, an individual who conceives of the so-called architecture of the community, and constructs it. The interaction within this community is thus very one-dimensional in that it almost always involves the blogger, and the interaction between other members is muted: there isn’t a sense of quality because this community is built on a property that is not publically owned (though it is publically accessible).
In a neighborhood, the system of ideas manifests in the infrastructure and architecture of the area, is represented by the culture and values of that community, and is present in the way people conduct themselves. The neighborhood is built up over a much more expansive time frame that reflects changing intentions, inclinations, and inhabitants. The community itself thus creates the community, unlike a blogging community, which is created by a specific individual with, presumably, a specific purpose in mind: a neighborhood directs no such responsibility on one man alone. As a result, the interactions in a neighborhood-formed community are much different: the different formations of public spheres in a neighborhood versus through a blog create environments conducive to different types of social interaction. Members of a neighborhood interact with each other more or less equally. There is no ‘higher other’ that this community caters to, and thus everyone is equally responsible for the interactions of the community: members are equally actors and audience-members.
A blog-induced community is formed without any real sense of physical space or boundary, leading to a degree of anonymity. However, while members of a neighborhood are afforded each other’s physical presence, it is entirely possible, and probable, that many members within the community have not had any further interaction with each other: they too, in a sense, are anonymous to one another. This creates two vastly disparate communities: one where verbal communication is easy and physical encounter weighted, and another where physical encounter is casual but verbal communication is not. Neither forms a community that is holistic, for each lacks an important aspect of interaction.
