Second Essay

The advancements made in communication technology have directly impacted social relationships and networks. With the introduction of the internet, the assumption was that the problems that faced personal interaction would be dissolved. The idea was that communication would be free from discrimination based on social status, race and gender. According to Peter Kollock and Marc Smith, “But as with earlier technologies that promised freedom and power, the central problems of social relationships remain, although in new and possibly more challenging forms.” Through my observations of the Usenet, I have found that these claims are true and that people have found ways to establish stronger social hierarchies, more discriminating and vicious than the ones established through personal interaction.

Developed in 1981, Usenet is one of the largest communication systems in existence. Usenet is comprised of several thousand discussion groups that about two million people all over the world participate in (Kollock & Smith, pg. 111). Kollock & Smith describe Usenet as a conferencing system that is often described as a Bulletin Board System. The Usenet group that I have chosen to study and observe is called Political Forum. This group is for discussion of American & international politics, political issues, politicians, presidential & other elections, news, humor, current events, opinions, and debates. This particular group shows a high activity rate with seventy five recent authors and 3,369 members. This group like most other groups had a set of rules that governs the discussion. Some of the rules in this group are as follows: members must be over 18, prohibits insulting behavior, and no spam, solicitations, pornography or posts.

The all time top people that post in this forum are Gaar and Hollywood (user names). After observing them I looked at there personal information and was able to obtain their gender and occupation. Gaar has no name, is a male, and has a technology background for an occupation. Hollywood’s real name is Jimmy, obviously a male and is a retired business man.

While studying this channel of communication I observed many different ways people communicated. The people in this forum mostly discussed recent news and politics. One of the topics that came up was oil production and alternative energy sources. Hollywood and Gaar expressed their individual opinions and refuted what the other person had to say. They went about it in a very antagonistic way. Gaar said that Hollywood had poor reading comprehension and a little brain. Hollywood insulted Gaar by belittling him by calling him a boy and an idiot. This sort of behavior is the opposite of the idea of cooperation that the Usenet was originally thought to foster. Here it is evident that the bloggers are discriminating on the basis of intellect and opinions. The discussion in this session was cluttered. This is due to the fact that Gaar and Hollywood filled it up with insults and the putting down of others who expressed their individual views. This shows that there was no equality in the forum and that Gaar and Hollywood were able to monopolize on the discussion by submitting lengthy responses that attacked other users for their views and attacking each other for supremacy of the forum. This supports the claim that new and more complex social hierarchies are formed from new communication technology. Most importantly, the purpose of the forum was defeated. Instead of people communicating on an equal playing field, two users made the rest feel inferior and discouraged them from articulating their ideas.

Another discussion involving the republicans came up while I was observing this channel. A person named Frank made a negative comment towards Republicans and was immediately attacked by Gaar. Gaar called him a rambling idiot and told him to get back in his cell. Soon after Gaar’s post was put up Hollywood responded with a post of his own. Hollywood asks Gaar what was the point of his post then goes on and compares the republicans to a simple minded six year old.

The idea of cooperation is that “the larger the group, the less it will further its common interests” (Olson 1965:36). This idea basically means that the larger the group the more likely a person will not contribute if no one listens to their ideas. This idea is a prime example of what happened in the Usenet group I chose to study. Someone would post there idea or stance on an issue and they were immediately attacked by Gaar or Hollywood. The discussions I observed were filled with Gaar and Hollywood’s ideas and views. There was little input by everyone else in the group.

The main difference that I observed between the Usenet and personal interaction was that there was much more vulgarity and personal attacks incorporated into the responses on Usenet. This is most likely attributed to the power of anonymity. Because the users are not face to face, they feel empowered and have no restrictions with the things they say and the manner in which they communicate their ideas. For the most part, people having a face to face discussion about politics would not use vulgarity towards each other to win the argument. However, on the Usenet it seems as though there are no societal restrictions and that people will stoop to any level to dominate the discussion.

Through my observation of the Usenet, it was clear that the original purpose of the new communication technology had not been fulfilled. The idea that online communication would break down social hierarchies was proved to be false. Instead, this new form of communication developed stronger social hierarchies and fostered a type of communication lacking societal restriction.

Sources:

Kollock, Peter & Smith, Marc. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In Susan C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 109-128). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.