Francoise, your analysis and example make me think that distinction between
face-to-face and electronic communication is not very helpful. I must admit
that I seem to "know" (whatever it means) some people from xmca whom I have
not seen face-to-face much better than some of my colleagues whom I see/saw
face-to-face almost every day.
I think a channel of communication is like a skeleton -- it both supports us
and limits in movements. What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Francoise Herrmann [mailto:fherrmann@igc.apc.org]
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 1998 3:15 PM
> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Dissent re: e-community talk
>
>
> Hi Martin, Hi Rachel, I agree that some school writing is for an
> "unknown" audience (although I have done research in settings where
> there is much consciousness and affort to set up functional writing
> environments, or activity systems etc...). And I disagree with the
> comparison of school and writing in an e-community such as e-xmca.
> Memebers of xmca may be "invisible" but their intro messages are
> quite real and so are the voices. Research on e-communities also
> tends to point out that "community" is built at an mazing pace and that
> psycho-soc factors are somewhat obliterated. ( I think that in F2F
> I would never say "Hi Martin!" to begin with). As pointed out
> before, the public nature of these talks tends to put "salutary
> pressure at the point of utterance" precisely because it is so easy.
>
> Francoise
> Francoise Herrmann
> fherrmann who-is-at igc.apc.org
> http://www.wenet.net/~herrmann
>
> ref: Wilkins, H (1991) Computer Talk: Long distance conversations
> by computer. Written communicaiton, 8(1), 56-77
> Keisler et. al. (1984)
>
>
>
>
>
> Socialpsychological aspects of competer-mediated communicaiton.
> American Psychologist 39, 1123-1134.
>