Virtual trouble: Negotiating access in online communities.

Abstract

Despite predictions that the Internet would become an egalitarian forum for the free exchange of ideas, social inequities are being observed. Members of online groups recognize social cues such as hierarchical ways of communicating. Yet, how do some online participants attain high status online, while others do not? Comparing two transnational, online communities, this study hypothesizes that people who demonstrate agreement with dominant forms of U.S. technical culture have greatest access to conversational rights and privileges. By combining ethnographic theories with micro-analyses of conversation, this study will address vital anthropological and socio-linguistic questions including: (1) How are social relationships reproduced in discourse? (2) How is status performed and negotiated? (3) How do people construct identity amid societal forces, such as the pace of technological change, in late modernity? (4) What socio-linguistic mechanisms do participants use to perform and negotiate identities within groups that have no real center, such as the vaguely labeled, technologists? (5) What local conversational and social contexts may affect the course of an identity performance and a participant's successful ratification as a member of a particular technical group? and (6) Do our ideas about language change when we study how media influences communication? This study will contribute to anthropological theories that investigate how groups create social mechanisms to construct a sense of self vis-a-vis their interlocutors. The dissertation will demonstrate that previous studies that asserted that the anonymous nature of the computer leads to acrimonious interaction are flawed since online groups often discourage anonymity. Rather, the study asserts that antagonistic argument stems from participants' desire to reduce anonymity and establish a sense of imagined communities of technical prestige groups. The dissertation also contributes to the field of the anthropology of science by showing how performances of the self and a wish to maximize social status affect discussions and understanding of technical processes. Finally, the study also explores and analyzes how socio-linguistic and cultural expression influence online freedom of expression.