In Valverde's "Social Transformations from Virtual Communities" she discusses the evolution of VNForum and its creators efforts to reach out to the Vietnamese community and diaspora to create dialogue and encourage change in Vietnam.
This is definitely a refreshing chapter to read in Valverde's book because it focused more on "positive thinking." I will admit that from reading Valverde's book, I've just come to realize that the Vietnamese community is extremely anti-communist. But with this chapter, it shows the even within a strongly anti-communist community, there are people who strive to better the Vietnamese government and foster change regardless of the anti-communist sentiments. They see their interest in the community as much more important. There are people who continue to fight against these anti-communist sentiment and strive to do something better for the community, and try to move forward with what has happened since the Vietnam War.
A question that I have from reading this chapter surrounds Hoanh's development of VNBiz. There was less members on this site due to the discussions occurring in English. He argued that the English language had the terms necessary for discussing important issues. I am wondering what would it have been like if he didn't have this restriction on the English language. I understand that the Western world was more "advanced" and therefore had the vocabulary to discuss such issues, but I do believe that just because a language does not carry a certain vocabulary that it means that language cannot discuss such topics. Languages, over time, develop new words to explain new things that arises and I felt that if Hoanh was to open the VNBiz conversations in Vietnamese as well, it would encourage the Vietnamese masses develop their thoughts and opinions on such topics.
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