1. Virtual Communities: The
Experiences of the Peripheral
Youth in using New Media tools
for Creative Participation and
Representation
Juby John Eipe, Titto Varghese
Dr. Arulselvan S. & Dr Nivedhitha D.
3. • Social networking via internet
• instrumental in building online communities
– “Pondicherry University”
– “Student’s Voice for Democracy in Pondicherry
University”
– “Malayali Pondicherry University” (MPU)
• platform for cultural exchanges in the form of
text, pictures, videos and their combinations
9. Methodology
• Content Analysis of the posts in the MPU
Facebook community
– from November 20 to 30, 2011
• Posts categorised based on
– the format of the posting
– the language
– the content
– the number of comments and likes received
– the day of posting
• members of the community interviewed
10.
11. • Agenda set by the active participants in favour
of a particular view point
• sharp criticisms and endorsements of different
ideas and ideologies
• post multimodal content with hyperlinks to
other websites, discussion forums and
Facebook pages with an objective to promote
certain causes
14. • Evolving agenda
• sharing content and initiating discussions on
diverse issues
• urge the members to promote the cause by
taking up various campaigns in the virtual
world
– like putting up a common ‘profile picture’
projecting the cause and in the real world by
participating in “protests” and educating “others”
about the cause.
15. • Range of Content
• not unanimous in their opinions always
• discuss, debate, argue and even fight virtually
without crossing the boundaries of propriety
16.
17. empower and encourage the
participants to move towards the
core, away from the margins
