Aha!! Another gratuitous dichotomy! Not only that, a left-over
dichotomy that didn't even work very well when it was formulated! Now
that telecommunications are here, it has even less relevancy.
I very much agree with D.S. On-line communities and communications are a
whole different breed, if not species, and the only serious way I can see
to research them is to start with old-fashioned "natural history" style
observation without trying to impose previous categories.
Now that I think of it, my own post of a few days back about how to
operate in an e-community grew out of just such a confusion. I had split
things up into "oral" and "written" and was trying to figure out which
category xmca is in, when the obvious answer is, "neither." Trying to
define it by saying what it isn't, is not going to work either because it
still involves referencing the old categories.
This reminds me of one of those awful positions in chess where all your
important pieces are pinned and you have nothing and nowhere to move.
Short of dumping the chess board on the floor (called the "Ebert defense"
where I come from, after one of its most emotional proponents) how do we
get out of this impasse?
Rachel Heckert