Computer‐mediated communication and the question of culture

Abstract

There is a controversy surrounding the existence of a culture created by the people who use computers to communicate. Those who deny its existence argue that emotional contact is only possible within the face‐to‐face setting, and that computer‐mediated communication does not allow enough commonalty to form a culture. Through an analysis of computer‐mediated communication transcripts collected from Bitnet‐Relay, a synchronous computer system, it is argued that cultures are both possible and prevalent among communities connected only by the computer as the preferred mode of communication.

Notes

J Michel Metz is a doctoral student in the Department of Telecommunications at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, where he teaches scriptwriting and an introductory course in telecommunications. He has acted as an Internet consultant to groups such as the American State Legislator's Foundation, and is a recent attendee of the Freedom Forum's Advanced State of Media Studies seminar. A version of this article was presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA, 1994.