Collective Belligerence

I've been finishing Henry Jenkins new book, Convergence Culture, this week and consequently I've been looking for examples to apply thesis that online communities generate "collective intelligence" through communal detective work, such as the group labor done by the fans who "spoil" Survivor.

Unfortunately, as even Jenkins himself acknowledges, these online communities don't always generate collective intelligence; sometimes they generate collective stupidity, as they did in their response to an editorial by victim of gun violence Jenny Price. Price wrote about how her brother and his fiancée were murdered by an incensed family member and how she drew upon her personal experiences to write an essay in favor of banning guns. In the months that followed her emergence as a published, public figure, Price discovered that pro-gun bloggers were speculating that either the murder she described was justified or the crime had never happened at all.

Her Sunday Los Angeles Times editorial "And These People Own Guns?" describes the mysogyny and aggression of these online communities and how their skepticism turned to wild speculation and obsession with the harrassing release of personal information and misinformation about the author and her family.