Cyberbabble: The grammatology of on‐line communications

Abstract

This paper considers the discursive conditions within on‐line communication spaces. The increasing use of electronic mail and internet relay chat as a form of communication, and the growing facination with multi‐user domains as a powerful dialogic space, has contributed to an emergent culture of virtual communities, in which participants engaged in dialogue no longer need to be present to ‘talk’ to one another. Indeed, the concept of telepresence is predicated on the idea that remote speakers can engage in a shared experience that is every bit as compelling as actually being in the same location. In order for this virtual communication space to be vivid, and to create the illusion o; f procimity, it has to efface itself as a signifying system. In other words, it has to behave according to the logic of oral rather than written communication. One assumption considered in the paper is that on‐line discursive practice is usually conducted as if it were a mode of speech, rather than writing.