agreed, Phil, this is not a dysfunctional system - and yes of course power is exercised and distributed - what caught my attention was a posting of a message that was ignored - and i wondered about the pattern.
phillip
________________________________
From: Phil Chappell [mailto:phil_chappell@access.inet.co.th]
Sent: Sun 10/17/2004 8:25 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Discourses of exclusion
On the heard and unheard voices on this list, can I add but one point?
By posting (or choosing not to post) to xmca, the *messager* is
transforming the cultural and linguistic resources available to them at
a particular point, and this point is always within their field of
power. The *power* of the messager is influenced by the perceived
*power* of the recipients of the post. That power is very significant
here on xmca --- unfortunately. The agency of the would-be-poster
(perhaps we can say the poster in a Bakhtinian world of inner dialogic
relations) needs to be unpacked before we can postulate whether it is
gender, communicative competence, peripheral or non-peripheral
participation, or whatever that leaves dialogue silent (but active)
rather than vocalised and more active.
I've met face-to-face some "lurkers" on xmca in Japan and
(electronically) in Australia. The profiles offered in previous posts
don't fit.
A dysfunctional system? I don't know, but I would like to include the
silent majority in the understandings I develop from xmca.
Phil Chappell
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