The Queer Sisters and its Electronic Bulletin Board

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of the Internet on offline social movement mobilization from the perspective of identity building. It is based on a case study of a women’s group in Hong Kong, the Queer Sisters, and the bulletin board it created on the World Wide Web. Content analysis, an online survey, interviews and observation conducted between September 1999 and December 2000 found that the bulletin board helped to foster a sense of belonging to the Queer Sisters among participants. Bulletin board participants also shared a culture of opposition to the dominant order. But a collective consciousness was absent, so the bulletin board fell short of building a collective identity among its participants. This paper, however, argues that the absence of a collective identity on the bulletin board is the result of the way the board was administered, constrained by the resources and the aims of the Queer Sisters. It suggests that the potential for the Internet to build collective identities for social movements differs for different types of social movements.

Keywords:

• social movements; mobilization
• Internet
• queer
• identity building

Notes

The number of organizers and volunteer helpers varies as some leave and others are invited to join. In September 1999, there were four organizers and nine volunteers (personal communication, 21 Sept. 2000), and in December 2000, there were seven organizers and eighteen helpers (statistics provided by Queer Sisters core organizer, 28 Dec. 2000).

The record was automatically provided by the free software available from the ‘Pollit.com web service’ site (http://www.pollit.com), which was used in the survey.

The sampling strategy was used considering the nature of text produced in online groups. The fluidity of participation in online groups means that those who are most active in posting messages at one time may be different from those at other times. Online groups also evolve, as participants inject new interests and concerns to their interactions with other participants. The absence of gate keeping, as in news organizations, further means that the content produced by an online group at one time may differ substantially from that at other times (Nip 2001). Taking reference from McLaughlin et al. (1997), who used four blocks of 200 contiguous messages each, this study used two blocks of contiguous messages in two four-week periods. The first block of messages was drawn immediately after my announcement at the Queer Sisters monthly gathering of my study, and the second immediately before the beginning of my web-based survey.

Taking reference from previous studies (Myers 1987; Correll 1995; McLaughlin et al. 1995; Kollock & Smith 1996; Rheingold 1996; Wellman & Gulia 1999), an initial classification scheme was devised and used to categorize the messages. It was then adjusted to become the present form.

‘Tongzhi’ is a transcription from the Chinese term for ‘comrade’, which communists often use to refer to people who share the same ideals and commitments. The term ‘tongzhi’ was appropriated by members of the gay community in Hong Kong before the 1997 political changeover to Communist China to refer to members in the community. The meaning of the term has since expanded to include at least lesbians as well.

The percentage is calculated by adding the first three pre-rounded up percentages shown in table 2

Respondents could give multiple responses to this question.

TB stands for ‘tom boy’, the equivalent of ‘butch’