Foreword

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Ronald Rice, Rutgers University

Introduction

Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Margaret McLaughlin, University of Southern California

Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia

Smile When You Say That: Graphic Accents as Gender Markers in Computer-Mediated Communication In the gender-bending world of computer-mediated communication (CMC), is it possible to determine the gender of a message sender from cues in the message? This study addresses the question by drawing on current literature to formulate and test three hypotheses: (1) women use more graphic accents than men do in their CMC, (2) men use more challenging language in CMC than do women, and (3) men write more inflammatory messages than do women. Results indicate that only the first hypothesis is partially supported and that women tend to challenge and flame more than do men in this sample group.

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Diane Witmer, California State University, Fullerton, USA

Sandra Katzman, Interac Co, Japan

Frames and Flames: The Structure of Argumentative Messages on the Net This chapter assesses the use, in computer-mediated communication, of the strategic message structuring tactic known as framing. It is hypothesized that framing strategies are related to the emotional tenor of a disputant's message and that a speaker's emotional involvement with an issue should be curvilinearly related to the appropriation of framing as an argumentative discourse strategy. Results provided support for the primary hypothesized relationship.

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Edward A. Mabry, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

Telelogue Speech Mediation processes form the basis of human psychological development. Speech signs play a crucial role in the internalization of mediating means. In the computer-mediated communication (CMC) field, speech has its own peculiarity, thus modifying the possible directions of the internalization process. The analysis in this chapter shows the specifics of CMC speech, i.e. telelogue speech.

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Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia

"Hmmm...Where's That Smoke Coming From?" Writing, Play and Performance on Internet Relay Chat This chapter is a study of writing, play and performance on Internet Relay Chat, known for short as IRC, a network program that allows thousands of users all around the globe, at any hour of the day or night, to talk to each other in real time by typing lines of text. We adopt a textual, micro-sociolinguistic approach, informed by recent work in discourse analysis, the study of orality and literacy, and the anthropology of play and performance.

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Brenda Danet, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and The Smithsonian Institution, USA

Lucia Ruedenberg, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and New York University, USA

Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ministry of Absorption of Immigrants, Israel

Media Use in an Electronic Community This study examines one facet of the penetration of personal computers into everyday life. It seeks to discover how members of a Usenet newsgroup value and use news sources. Electronic news sources predominated. An important finding is the media use was not tied to the user's local geographic. The study raises several questions for future research: What are the rhetorical dimensions of media use in electronic communities? How might our understanding of readers and communities be affected by new patterns of media use in electronic communities?

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Steve Jones, University of Tulsa, USA

From Terminal Ineptitude to Virtual Sociopathy: How Conduct is Regulated on Usenet This chapter explores standards of conduct across a representative sampling of Usenet newsgroups. Established newsgroups, those with a core cadre of regular posters, can be characterized as common place where group standards for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors regulate discourse. These standards differ from group to group and in many ways reflect the underlying goals and purposes of the group as well as its demographic makeup. This chapter raises and addresses several interesting behavioral questions and gender issues in the development of so-called online communities. It highlights a critical research question that remains in this area: Are standards for conduct a symptom of or an inevitable consequence of community?

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Christine B. Smith

Margaret L. McLaughlin

Kerry K. Osborne, University of Southern California, USA

Investigation of Relcom Network Users Relcom is the most intensively used network available of the former Soviet Union, and its users form a sample of highly active and educated citizens of the newly-formed independent states. To describe this newly -- formed sample, surveys of the users were conducted via the network. The results include data on demographic characteristics of users, their attitudes, motivations, and typical ways of network usage. Attitudes towards possible social monitoring service functioning in the network are also investigated, and the potential directions of its functioning are rated by the respondents.

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Alexander E. Voiskounsky, Moscow University, Russia

Practicing Safe Computing: Why People Engage in Risky Computer-Mediated Communication This chapter defines the basic types of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and contextualizes them as electronic counterparts to other forms of communication. It then discusses the ways in which message privacy and security can be compromised in the electronic environment and reports a survey study of individuals who engage in potentially embarrassing forms of CMC via USENET newsgroups. The questionnaire asked respondents how risky they perceived their communications to be and why they felt secure enough to engage in risky communication. Survey results were equivocal on the question of user perceptions of privacy, but indicated that the perceived risk was low in the sample group. Finally, the chapter discusses implications and proposes an agenda for future research.

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Diane Witmer, California State University, Fullerton, USA

The Social Construction of Rape in Virtual Reality The current social construction of rape in virtual reality is not a worthwhile endeavor in that it forces theorists to adapt an undesirable concept in order to import it into virtual reality. Rape exists as such in real life because of the social construction of women relative to the social construction of men. The relationship of these constructions is not and does not have to be analogous in virtual reality because virtual reality presents an opportunity for social reordering. Among these opportunities is the exploration of the ramifications of bodies presented arbitrarily. Given these opportunities, theorists seeking to pursue positive constructionism ought to endeavor to develop virtual -- reality specific constructions which empower rather than import real life constructions which victimize.

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Richard MacKinnon, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Interactivity on the Nets This chapter proposes that one useful perspective for studying group computer-mediated communication (CMC) is interactivity. Results indicate that the content on the net is less confrontational than is popularly believed: conversations are more helpful and social than competitive. Interactive messages seem to be more humorous, contain more self-disclosure, display a higher preference for agreement and contain many more first-person plural pronouns. This indicates that interactivity plays a role in the social dynamics of group CMC, and sheds a light on comparing interactive messages with conversation. The focus should be on the glue-that which keeps message threads and their authors together-and what makes the groups and their interaction tick

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Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia

It Makes Sense: Using an Autoassociative Neural Network to Explore Typicality in Computer Mediated Discussions ProjectH, a research group of a hundred researchers, produced a huge amount of data from computer mediated discussions. The data classified several thousand postings from over 30 newsgroups into 46 categories. One approach to extract typical examples from this database is presented in this paper. An autoassociative neural network is trained on all 3000 coded messages and then used to construct typical messages under certain specified conditions. With this method the neural network can be used to create typical messages for several scenarios. This chapter illustrates the architecture of the neural network that was used and explains the necessary modifications to the coding scheme. In addition several typicality sets produced by the neural net are shown and their generation is explained. In conclusion, the autoassociative neural network is used to explore threads and the types of messages that typically initiate or contribute longer lasting threads.

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Michael Berthold, University of Karlsruhe, Germany

Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia

Sid Newton, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, Australia

Richard Coyne, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Modeling and Supporting Virtual Cooperative Interaction Through the World Wide Web The development of the Internet has been very rapid, with little central planning. Despite its widespread use, there is little information about the social dynamics of Internet technologies. Many systems have been developed to cope with the information overload generated by direct access to the Internet. One common feature among the wide variety of indexing and search tools now available is the support they provide for selective attention and awareness in the communities using the net. It would be useful to analyze the design issues and principles involved in these tools in terms of the knowledge and discourse processes in the communities using these tools. This chapter provides a model of the virtual cooperative interaction on the World Wide Web in terms of discourse and awareness and uses it to classify the types of support tools existing and required.

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Lee Li-Jen Chen

Brian R. Gaines

Guided Exploration of Virtual Worlds In this chapter, we introduce Merlyn, an intelligent computer agent whose purpose is to guide children in their discovery of such worlds, and by so doing, to increase both their enjoyment and the effectiveness of that discovery. Merlyn is an autonomous agent that also has an integrated personality and emotional model, since he is intended to be a companion rather than a reference. We describe a particular kind of virtual world, the MUD (or multi-user dimension), that Merlyn is designed to interact with. We explain how he makes decisions in such a world, and how these places can be annotated with information to help him understand why they are there and how to use them. Merlyn can use these annotations to learn more about the world as the children travel, and this allows him to explain the world to the children, to suggest activities that may interest them, and to participate with them -- in playing games, for example. We describe two prototype implementations of Merlyn, and describe future additions for a full-featured version. With Merlyn as a companion, children can be guided into strategically-chosen learning activities while having a friendly, entertaining experience in the virtual environment.

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Patrick Doyle

Barbara Hayes-Roth

Appendix: ProjectH Overview: A Collaborative Quantitative Study of Computer-Mediated Communication A large group of people from several countries and many universities collaborated for two years on a quantitative study of electronic discussions. Members of the group include researchers from several dozen universities, representing numerous academic disciplines, who used the net in order to study use of the net. This report documents the design of the study and the methodology used to the net. This report documents the design of the study and the methodology used to create the first, and possibly, representative sample of international, public group computer-mediated communication.

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M. Sheizaf Rafaeli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Fay Sudweeks, University of Sydney, Australia

Joe Konstan, University of Minnesota, USA

Ed Mabry, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

Bibliography

283

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Index

309