By Prof. Wayne Spivak
Wspivak@sbanetweb.com
On The Internet July/August 1998
©Wayne Spivak 1998
Has the Internet truly created the much-talked-about and
much-maligned global community? Is this the medium that will
provide the ties to bind us all together? Will we be able to see
truly classless interaction between the oppressed and the free
and between the wealthy and the poor?
Is the Internet Utopia? Is this what Sir Thomas More envisioned
when he wrote about Utopia in the 1500s? Or is this new community
wholly represented by The Principality Of New Utopia
(http://www.new-utopia.org/)? Has our Internet become oppressive,
or has it never been a community to start with? Do we require
other ties outside this electronic framework of bits and bytes to
create a global community?
Why look at the Internet as a community? Because in the United
States, the traditional media such as newspapers, radio, and
television are with increasing sensationalism reporting each
criminal act committed by Internet users. One such example was
featured prominently on the front page of the April 30, 1998,
edition of the New York Times2.
In that case, a member of a mailing list confessed to another
list member that he had committed murder. A less prominent story
reporting his arrest appeared a day or two later in the same
newspaper.
Those types of reports foster the concept that the Internet is in
fact a community-or at least a place where communities evolve.
And if our Internet is a community, it must conform to some type
of defined structure.
Many of these and other issues that are raised herein are for
you, the reader, to decide. Cultural differences and life
experiences all will play a part in your decision on what makes a
community. Political and economic, geographic and social
attitudes will influence your reaction. I can only provide my
viewpoint, which is deeply influenced by my Western upbringing.
My viewpoint is greatly influenced by the work of noted
anthropologist Ruth Benedict. In her discipline-setting book
Patterns of Culture, Benedict states, "What really binds men
together is their culture-the ideas and the standards they have
in common.3" The term
culture has acquired a symbiotic relationship with the term
community. Franz Boas, one of the founding fathers of social
anthropology, put it this way. "The intensive analysis of
cultures gave us information on social life, such as economic
life, technology, art, social organization.4"
Benedict also talks about rites de passage as major aspects of
culture. This Western interpretation of culture can then be
carried forward from 1934 to 1998. We now use the term culture
quite easily, and it has come to mean many things. The term
corporate culture is used readily in lieu of the term corporate
community and vice versa. This is what I believe has driven our
generation in its view of the Internet.
If we were to expand upon Boas and Benedict, we would say that
political and organizational structure is what gives a community
its cohesiveness. And if those types of structures serve as our
benchmark, when does-or where does-the Internet provide this st
ructure? Or does an Internet community function under a different
mechanism?
Let's look at several communities in light of our working
hypothesis and examine the interaction between the members of
those communities. What makes for an Internet community?
Typically, it is a shared interest, whether it exists within
USENET or on a mailing list.
A mailing list can be a vehicle for communication, a lifeline, or
a commune or Utopian community of sorts. All mailing lists suffer
from high turnover and the potential for burnout. Even modern-day
Utopian communes perceive excessive turnovers of their me
mberships as threats. This is "often demoralizing for a
group-even the most hang-loose, do-your-own-thing group-to face a
continual turnover by losing members or to contemplate
dissolution5," says
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor.
The mailing list examples include five different Internet
communities to which I have belonged or currently belong. Some
have Web sites and newsgroups that are either private or public,
and they may offer other Internet services such as chat or FTP
sites.
Two of the lists provide just one of the many different
communication outlets of established organizations, adhering to
the definition postulated by Benedict. The other three lists
represent the sole source of communication and interpersonal
interaction f or the group. Of the established organizations, one
list was created years after the organization's formation; the
second list of this group is an integral part of the
organization. Each list is dedicated to a particular purpose or
community, and each ser ves the aim well.
The first example is the mailing list of a national boating
organization located in the United States, with members as far
away from the source as Tokyo. The organization-United States
Power Squadrons (USPS)-was formed for both educational and social
reas ons. Its focus is to foster safe boating on the waterways.
Founded in 1914, USPS has long been a bulwark of the boating
scene, with many nautical traditions over the years. After more
than 75 years, it has created its own community, and it is not
uncommon for members to give more than 25 years of service to the
b oating organization. USPS adheres to many aspects of our
definition of a community, having subdivided its political
structure for manageability and providing its citizens with a
host of services.
The second example is the Internet Society (ISOC), whose
goals include increasing growth of the Internet by finding
reasonable solutions to the problems of the Internet. The
Internet Society maintains several informational and/or
discussion-based mailing lists, along with a myriad of mailing
lists maintained by its many chapters.
Founded in 1992, the Internet Society was formed to work within
the Internet. It is in many ways a creation of the Internet
itself. As a relatively young organization, it faces the matter
of how to develop a global Internet community.
The three other mailing lists tie individuals together based on
either a shared recreational/professional interest or use of a
product. Web sites and/or other Internet services are maintained
by the manufacturer of the product or as an archiving resource.
Such lists are very active, with much information being shared
both publicly and privately.
The first is the Navigation E-mail list. This list is dedicated
to nonelectronic nautical navigation. Its members share a common
interest in this art, finding great joy in using dead reckoning,
compasses, parallel rules, and sextants to plot exact positio ns
on the ocean. Members come from all walks of life; some own boats
and some have never owned boats and some live near water and
others live as far from a large body of water as is possible.
The second example is the BSDI users list. This list discusses
anything associated with the BSDI UNIX operating system. Members
on this list include owners of the BSDI operating system, both
expert and novice. Discussion spans the gamut, from how to insta
ll an update to how to configure a mailing list.
The last list is Navision Users Group. Navision is a high-end,
PC-based accounting system, with installations throughout Europe
and the United States. Questions here range from how to program
the system to how to correctly set up the inventory system for a
particular company.
These lists represent a wide range of interests and hobbies.
Membership put me into several different communities all at the
same time. However, is the membership in these lists a valid
example of a community-more specifically, an Internet community?
Alte rnatively, is the Internet being used as a means to an end,
an adjunctive device, and a tool to deliver information?
There are other examples of mailing lists' becoming more
formalized by moving from a collection of individuals without a
formal organization to becoming structured associations. Examples
of these type of groups are the HTML Writers Guild and the
Associati on of Internet Professionals. As those associations
develop, they move on to become more formalized both in political
and social structure and in legality. They seek government
recognition by requesting corporation status. They charge dues
for membership and hire full-time staffs to work on behalf of
their membership. They rent office space, and they print
stationery and business cards.
Once a group has gone this far, is it truly an Internet
community, or has it transcended the Internet to become a
mainstream organization? More important, should we as members of
the global Internet users group strive for a definition of our
group? Do we need to confirm and or establish or reestablish our
justification for joining this boundaryless communication
vehicle? These are the questions we need to ask, answer, and
share with our fellow Netizens and fellow citizens, for without
an identity-for good or for bad-we Netizens will cease to be a
community.
Footnotes:
1. Paul Goodman (1911–72), U.S. author, poet, critic. Five Years, "Winter and Spring 1956–1957," sct. 8 (1966).
2. New York Times, "An On-Line Trail leads to an Off-Line Killing" Vol. CXLVII, No 51,143 April 30, 1998
3. Paterns of Culture by Ruth Benedict, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 1934 page 16.
4. Ibid, page xv-xvi (boaz quote)
5. Commitment and Community – communes and utopias in Socilogical Perspective, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1972 Page 216