Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 3. TECHNOLOGY & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 48
of group membership. A person becomes a participant in the discussion by, in
Rice’s words, interacting with the transcript. However, there is not necessarily
a record of having done so, and neither entry to nor exit from the discussion is
necessarily a public event of which others would be aware. Individuals can interact
with the transcript by reading the words of others without leaving evidence
of their actions. 1 Furthermore, the notion of membership suggests some level of
commitment to the group as a whole.
The group, constituted as a structure that exists in the minds of its members, does
not necessarily exist. Further, to the extent that such identification does exist, it is
not necessary that there be any commitment on the part of the participants. This
results in the following reworked definition of computer mediated discussion:
Computer mediated discussion is a computer-facilitated mechanism for recording
and using a textual transcript of a series of messages written by more
than one individual over varying lengths of time, with participation by individuals
who may be geographically dispersed, and who may interact with
the transcript either simultaneously or at times of their own choosing.
Computer mediated discussion is technologically simple (Krol 1992) and linguistically
complex (Bolter 1989, Bolter 1991, Ferrara, Brunner & Whittemore 1991,
Ess 1993, Shank 1993). 2 The most familiar analogy to the non-computer world
is a physical bulletin board in a common area. An individual happening by the
bulletin board might decide one day to “post” a message, addressed to no one in
particular, about a specific subject. Another individual happening by might read
the posting, and decide to post a reply to the original message, and/or to post a
message of their own. A third individual happening by might read all the postings,
and reply as desired. The first individual might happen by a few days later, and
respond to the responders, and add a new posting on a different subject. And so
1 Technically speaking, this is not true, as most systems have the capacity to track the actions
of their users. This violates the spirit of privacy that most users expect, however, and would at any
rate generate a set of “footprints” that would be visible only to the local system administrator, and
not necessarily to other “members” of the group. (Johnson & Snapper 1985, Krol 1992).
2 See also Herring (1993), Kiesler, Seigel & McGuire (1984),McCormick & McCormick
(1992),Smith & Balka (1991), and Rafaeli (1986). Early descriptions of computer mediated discussion
(sometimes called computer conferencing) appear in Hiltz & Turoff (1978), Johansen,
Vallee & Spangler (1979), Rice (1980), Kerr & Hiltz (1982), Rice (1984), Hiltz (1984), Kiesler,
Seigel & McGuire (1984), Rafaeli (1986), Johansen (1988) Smith & Balka (1991), McCormick &
McCormick (1992), and Herring (1993).