Benkler

1. The availability of resources through which one may communicate is a remarkable advancement that has accompanied the information revolution. Benkler makes not of this and explains how beneficial it is for humans to have technology at their disposal that allows them to communicate with millions of people with ease. Freedom of speech and the press (in reality, our press may not be so free after all when one considers the amount of weight privately held interests carry with the media, but that's another story) allow for creativity and personal expression to be practiced at new levels when coupled with social networking.

2. Ratemyprofessors.com is an excellent social network that allows students to see how others feel about instructors. Students may freely enter feedback on former instructors to assist future students in their class selection. Tons of students use the site as a reference prior to class registration, making it a valuable social networking tool. Another intriguing social networking site is called Second Life. This online virtual reality site allows for users to generate their own virtual version of themselves, and then attend business meetings, parties, etc. with their online character.

3. One example of the social network sphere that comes to mind is the blog my summer boss asked me to keep. I interned at an insurance company, and with more than a dozen interns altogether, the business needed to find ways to distinguish between all of us. One way they did this was to keep track of our blogs, which were to be completed on a weekly basis. We were given a topic to write about, whether it be our goals for the summer, our personal mission and vision statements, or our reflections on the summer. Without social networks such as the one with which my office was equipped, it would have been much more difficult for our employers to draw feedback from us.
Another example that comes to mind is from another class I took with Bettina, Media Literacy. We were asked to communicate with our classmates through Google docs, by posting discussions as en entire class, and also planning group projects. For the most part Google docs made communication easy and accessible for us, despite the occasional minor technical difficulty. Forums such as these help us facilitate discussions in ways not possible prior to advancements in social networking.