I guess one thing I'm wondering is how graduate student participation on
lists such as this is researched or theorized. Is silence read as
self-marginalization? Or is it read as a kind of meaningful distanced
participation? Also, within their streams of activity and institutional
situations, how do we locate lists in the lives of grad students as opposed
to faculty or others? I'd be curious to know how anyone researching lists
approaches these or related problems.
As a student, I've often found class-based lists to involve a
fair amount of activity that's not all that meaningful or
dialogic--perhaps serving an entirely different set of purposes than some
listserves, such as the exchange of electronic papers for response, the
surveillance of work, the construction of deadlines, a smartness
competition, etc.
Kevin