{"id":54,"date":"2014-10-11T16:58:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T16:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/charliemasonblog.wordpress.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2014-10-11T16:58:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-11T16:58:19","slug":"explain-the-concept-of-digital-visitors-and-residents-drawing-upon-your-own-online-experiences-to-date-in-support-of-the-points-that-you-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/2014\/topic-1-2014\/2014\/10\/explain-the-concept-of-digital-visitors-and-residents-drawing-upon-your-own-online-experiences-to-date-in-support-of-the-points-that-you-make\/","title":{"rendered":"Explain the concept of digital \u201cvisitors\u201d and \u201cresidents\u201d drawing upon your own online experiences to date in support of the points that you make."},"content":{"rendered":"

The concepts of digital \u201cvisitors\u201d and \u201cresidents\u201d are the following: \u201cVisitors\u201d use the internet as a tool to accomplish something such as booking a holiday, or to complete a task (White and Le Cornu, 2011a), whereas the \u201cresident\u201d \u2018lives\u2019 on the web alongside their physical lifestyle. Like one would maintain their physical house and perhaps choose it to project a certain image of them, \u201cresidents\u201d will maintain their online presence so as to project an image they feel is representative of them online (White and Le Cornu, 2011a).<\/p>\n

Whilst I agree with White and Le Cornu (2011b), I believe that the concept of a \u201cresident\u201d should be revised. The concept of the digital \u201cresident\u201d seems to be straightforward: someone who lives on the web. However, from my exper this isn\u2019t always the case. From my personal online experience, I feel my father is a good example of this. He is of the age where he could be classified as a \u201cvisitor\u201d, and to some extent is. The difference is (one I suspect is replicated widely) he has a Facebook and a LinkedIn account, something \u201cvisitors\u201d are unlikely to have. The point is that my father is between the two concepts. I feel more clarification is needed on how much a \u201cresident\u201d is<\/em> a \u201cresident\u201d. My father has Facebook, but doesn\u2019t have the app on his phone and he doesn\u2019t check his account; instead he waits for notifications via email, so he is, in a sense, a \u201creactionary resident\u201d (parallels can be drawn with Harris et al.\u2019s (p.5, 2010) use of the \u2018passive\u2019 and \u2018creator\u2019 categories). In context of this added perspective we could reconsider my father as a \u201cpassive resident\u201d. He is certainly more of a \u201cresident\u201d than a \u201cvisitor\u201d, but doesn\u2019t satisfy the requirements of the \u201cresident\u201d concept.<\/p>\n

To conclude, it seems the \u201cresident\u201d label is especially broad and categorically exclusive. Particularly as the concept is constricted, and impractical in its use \u2013 it doesn\u2019t account for exceptions in other groups of users, especially when a user has several of White and Le Cornu\u2019s (2011) attributes of both concepts. The need for more clarification can also be seen by the fact that the vast majority of the UK is online (Department for Culture, Media and Sport et al., 2009). I believe this shows that the very varied majority of the UK\u2019s internet users are incompatible with the current \u201cresident\u201d concept.<\/p>\n

\n

Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. (2009). Digital Britain<\/em>. London: The Stationery Office. [Online]. Available at:www.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/228844\/7650.pdf<\/a> [Accessed: 9 October 2014)<\/p>\n

Harris, L., Warren, L., Leah, J. and Ashleigh, M. (2010). Small steps across the chasm: ideas for embedding a culture of open education in the university sector. Technology & Social Media (Special Issue, Part 2)<\/em>, 1 (16)<\/p>\n

White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement <\/em>. First Monday. [Online]. Available at:\u00a0http:\/\/firstmonday.org\/article\/view\/3171\/3049%20https:\/\/comminfo.rutgers.edu\/%7Etefko\/Courses\/Zadar\/Readings\/Selwyn%20dig%20natives,%20Aslib%20Proceedings%202009.pdf<\/a> [Accessed: 6 October 2014] b.<\/p>\n

White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2011). Not \u2018Natives\u2019 & \u2018Immigrants\u2019 but \u2018Visitors\u2019 & \u2018Residents\u2019<\/em>. TALL blog. [Online]. Available at: http:\/\/tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2008\/07\/23\/not-natives-immigrants-but-visitors-residents\/<\/a> [Accessed: 7 October 2014] a.<\/p>
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The concepts of digital “visitors” and “residents” are the following: “Visitors” use the internet as a tool to accomplish something such as booking a holiday, or to complete a task (White and Le Cornu, 2011a), whereas the “resident” ‘lives’ on the web alongside their physical lifestyle. Like one would maintain their physical house and perhaps…\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94708,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1031814],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-topic-1-2014","column","threecol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94708"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/uosm2033\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}