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Reddit: A Community of Communities of Practice
I used to do wedding photography. I did not end up enjoying it and have since not really been engaging in photography as a hobby. However, recently I have decided to get back into it and am faced with a challenge. Technology has moved so quickly that I feel a little lost with how to pursue my hobby. Once I considered myself an expert, but now I consider myself a beginner because things have changed so much just in the span of a few years.
When I was doing it professionally your choices were limited to purchasing a DSLR from Canon or Nikon. Conversely, because of technological developments, the choice of equipment is more complex.
Naturally the most millenial thing for me to do is to consult reddit. What I like about reddit is that you can find a community about almost anything, find experts, and learn from those experts. In these subreddits we see a shared passion for something, and everyone is sharing experiences and knowledge which in turn helps everyone to do it better. This is exactly what a Community of Practice is[1].
Let's take a look at the subreddit I consulted to get back into my photography hobby. The /r/photography subreddit as 3.4 million members, and is replete with FAQs, wikis, advice threads, buyers guides etc. Their own community description basically outlines that this is a community of practice, not simply a place to post photos.
/r/photography is a place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography. This is not a good place to simply share cool photos or promote your work, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.
Communities of Practice are not new, they have existed since people have been learning from the experiences of others[2]. What is new is the affordances of the virtual space. I can access /r/photography at any time, practically any where, and get information I am specifically looking for, or simply browse and absorb information from other people. Even though I have ignored photography for the past several years, I can now get caught up on all the developments, all the new techniques, all the new programs by simply opening this community of practice on my phone.
Footnotes
- ^ "Introduction to communities of practice - A brief overview of the concept and its uses". Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner. Retrieved 13 June 2020.
- ^ Shields, Patricia M. (2003). "The Community of Inquiry: Classical Pragmatism and Public Administration". Administration & Society. 35 (5): 510–538. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.1008.9702. doi:10.1177/0095399703256160. ISSN 0095-3997. S2CID 146759673.
Good references here. Community learning is not new but I think the idea of having a moderator or teacher available to scaffold learning would be very helpful. Since you are not a beginner photographer, the equipment would be what you would need to learn about. A beginner would need to learn aperture, iso settings, etc.