[email protected]: new ways to miss the point

Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 22, No. 4, Summer 1998

[email protected]: new ways tomiss the point

Mike Davis and Margaret E. Holt

ABSTRACT: The desire to establish international links between two departments ofadult education and to experiment with new technologies led us to establish alistserv—a computer based community in cyberspace. This article describes theexperience and attempts to articulate some of the problems that emerged. The mainproblem was the failure in developing a sense of community among the participants.This failure had its origins in some of the assumptions about groups in cyberspaceand their similarity to groups in face to face settings.

In 1995 students and faculty from the University of Manchester,United Kingdom, visited the Department of Adult Education at theUniversity of Georgia as the first step in what was hoped would be-come an ongoing opportunity of the respective academic programsfor those students interested in an international exchange duringtheir studies. In the final planning phase of this visit, there was thefeeling that some kind of ongoing dialogue between faculty and stu-dent members of the two departments would serve to enrich bothprograms and would, indeed, contribute a shared research agendafor faculty and future doctoral students. The appropriate technologyto facilitate this connection over the 4,000 miles and five time zoneswas an E-mail list set up at the University of Manchester. It wasagreed that faculty and students in both institutions would be re-cruited for this voluntary activity and that the principal investigator,

Mike Davis completed his undergraduate education in English Literature at theUniversity of Bristol and postgraduate study in Linguistics at the University ofLancaster. His Master's degree is from the University of Manchester in EducationalStudies. He is now completing his Ph.D. thesis on "Learning and Teaching in HigherEducation: Experiences in the Group" at the University of Manchester. Margaret E.Holt received a Bachelor's degree in English Education from Ohio Northern University,a Master's and doctorate in Adult Education from the University of Georgia, whereshe is currently an Associate Professor in Adult Education. Professor Holt is anassociate with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, and she is also a former editorof Innovative Higher Education.

311 © 1998 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

who was the initiator of the project in Manchester, would facilitatethe list in consultation with other colleagues.

The original intention was to work with a relatively small group,but the effort to limit the size of the list was not effectively coordi-nated. Recruitment therefore was episodic and sporadic, and by De-cember 1995 there were 47 persons signed up at the two universities.Most were students, the remainder faculty, equally distributed be-tween both locations.

The facilitation of an electronic dialogue offered a way to exploresome of the implications of the use of distance communication forthe field of adult education. It is particularly important to do so forat least three reasons:

• computer-mediated communication (CMC) is increasingly seenas a powerful tool for the provision of courses for the adultstudent;

• there may be assumptions about the nature of the dynamics thatemerge on line—among them that interpersonal communicationwill be identical to, or at least an extrapolation of, that whicharises in face-to-face (F2F) communication;

• and it is clear that the technology genie is out of the bottle, andthere is no stuffing it back inside.

Educators have a responsibility to make sure students are familiarwith the strengths and shortcomings of technology. An exploration ofthe failure of a project may be of some use to those thinking aboutusing the technology. Perhaps more importantly, projects such as thisone may lay the foundations for theory-building based upon the para-dox of distant communication within the electronic confines of theglobal village (McLuhan, 1968).

The explanations and critique that follow are based almost entirelyupon the experience of attempting to facilitate the exchange. Thedata draw from research notes of the principal investigator, submis-sions to the list, and from others' writings, as well as a brief evalu-ation conducted by a research colleague in this project. By definition,therefore, it is impressionistic and speculative and somewhat differ-ent from the more systematic, empirical enquiry that was anticipatedin the bid for research funds to the Manchester Research and Gradu-ate School of Education Research Development Fund.

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Conduct of the Project

Breaking the Ice

The primary purpose in setting up the international listserv wasto identify areas of common study and research interests that mightlead to collaboration. Thus the list discussion began by sharing back-grounds and experiences in response to straightforward prompts fromthe listserv manager for biographical information. Participantsshared brief biographies with other listserv members, describingtheir orientation towards adult education and their general experi-ences with other fields both as students and as practitioners. By theend of December 1995, membership had reached 47; and it wasagreed that the more formal discussion would begin through an ex-ploration of individual and collective experiences in adult education.This was going to be achieved by the use of autobiographical writingof a particular kind: the critical incident report. The technique wasadapted from Brookfield (1990) and was introduced to participantsas follows:

Think back over the past year. During that time, what event madeyou as an educator or as a student feel a real "high" of excitement,satisfaction, and fulfillment? A time when you said to yourself "Thisis what it is all about," or "This is what makes it all worthwhile?"Write a brief description of the event (no more than 1 page or 400words). Make sure you include details of when and where it happened,who was involved (roles, functions, and job titles should be used ratherthan the names of individuals) and what it was about the event thatmade you feel so good. (Listserv February, 1996)

The intention was to submit this writing to the listserv manager inManchester. It was to have an embargo, a moratorium against pub-lication, attached to it; and it would therefore not be released to thelist until the agreed date. The purpose of this embargo was to avoida situation where list members responded to a model of what othershad written and to avoid an agenda set by those who felt confidentto speak first. It was therefore an attempt to manipulate the tem-poral experience: in theory, at least, everyone would be able to seeeach others' writings at the same time. What was to happen nextwas to be left to individual members: to use the information as abasis of dyadic and small group discussions or as a prompt to attemptto generalize about the nature of people's experiences as described

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in these accounts. There is doubt, however, about the extent to whichthat this was made explicit: pragmatically (how can I write to astranger?) or technologically (do I know how to send an E-mail mes-sage? where is the address?). Theoretically each person could havehad 46 other scripts to read. It was suggested that participants re-spond to the list or to individuals or groups depending on how theyinterpreted or understood what they read. They could ask questions,make comments, agree, disagree. What the formal writing activitieswere designed to do was to break the ice and, in subsequent activi-ties, to help monitor the progress of movement towards a sense ofa community of interest.

Falling Through the Ice

To say that this manner of getting started met a few snags wouldbe an underestimate of what actually happened. Just a few days be-fore the deadline of the first writing task, there had been 12 sub-missions—six from each institution. As the listserv manager wasconsidering allowing the deadline to pass, or to suggest an alternativedistribution, there was an incredibly powerful intervention througha posting that indicated, among other things, that there were seriousissues about the way the listserv had been initiated. More baffling,there was the observation that action research, the ascribed meth-odology, was in some sense unethical. This intervention was followedby another posting from a second professional associate, who de-scribed, in not as strong terms, a sense of unease about what wasplanned as the opening strategy.

The listserv manager reacted with some shock to these postings.Not only did they cast some doubts about the ethics of the activity,but they also broke what he took to be an agreement about how thelist would progress as a community of interest. There was also asense of disappointment that such objections could not have beenexplored more privately, off the list. These open communicationswere, however, the first indication that there were problems with thenature of the task. Clearly, this difficulty had to be dealt with onthe list, given that all participants had been exposed to the concerns.Prior to making any specific decisions, the listserv manager re-quested feedback from Georgia faculty participants regarding theirreactions to these postings. He felt that this would give him a bettersense of how to proceed best.


Not surprisingly, the request generated no reply because the situ-ation was clearly tied up with issues of power. The two respondentswere well-respected, senior academics within and beyond their owninstitutions, and a direct challenge to their position may have beenthought to create a climate of hostility and recrimination. Further-more, there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that some facultywere genuinely perplexed by the nature of these interventions andthat they suspected deeper motives, unrelated to the listserv itself.Nevertheless, this post hoc appreciation did not help the listservmanager decide what to do next. In some desperation, he wrote:

As of 6:30 p.m. GMT this evening I had received 12 embargoed mes-sages related to the first writing activity. There may be a number ofreasons for this that we need to explore over the next few days, someof which have already been aired on the list. [ . . . ] I am unsure asto how to facilitate this next stage. Perhaps it is to seek views in re-sponse to:a) the taskb) the proposed research (by Margaret Holt and me)c) reservations that have been expressed in recent days. (Email corre-spondence 6:41 p.m. GMT 22nd February, 1996)

This generated four responses, two each from the US and the UK.The issues that emerged were lack of familiarity with e-mail inter-fering with the process and pressures of time, particularly in relationto voluntary additional work. More substantially, there was commentabout safety and comfort—echoing remarks made earlier. The follow-ing (from someone who had already submitted a critical incident)represented the strongest position:

It is difficult, even in an on-line community for people to quickly gelinto a productive discussion group on such a subject matter as 'yourpersonal critical moments in learning.' OK it [is] much easier to com-ment on the latest Tarantino movie or ardvark (sic) star trek discussiongroup nonsense but emotional critical moments are much closer to theheart. (Email correspondence to UGAMU [name of the listserv], 9:57a.m. EST llth March, 1996).

Not Waving but Drowning

By this time, the listserv manager was experiencing a strong senseof disillusionment; and, in a final attempt to promote discussion ofthe issues, he summarized the situation thus far and invited peopleto either 1) submit an autobiographical piece as originally requested,


by the following Monday, 8th April or 2) remain a member of thelistserv and write and circulate a critical incident at a later date. Atthe suggestion of another active listserv member, he also asked thosepeople who had already submitted their writing to indicate their will-ingness to release their material to the whole list, in the hope thatit would stimulate some kind of response and convince people thatwere was little to be afraid of in this transatlantic discussion. Thisis how one responded:

I vote for option A: release to the whole list. Maybe that will quellsome fears. Otherwise we may be held hostage to the "out of sight,out of mind" principle.

Another wrote:

I am one of those who has already sent in my autobiographical piece.Like F, I am happy to have it released to the whole list. (In truth, Iam a little abashed by all the controversy. Either I am quite bold—which doesn't seem to fit—or I am just dense about perceiving all thelurking power issues!)

A third commented:

I am sorry your effort to promote dialogue has met with so many com-plications. Hopefully, the discussion will get back on track soon. Thanksfor your work on this project. It is fine to release my critical incidentto the whole group.

This most recent intervention did seem to raise the energy levels alittle, but not enough. A few days later the listserv manager wrotethe following:

As you will all be aware, eight pieces of writing have been circulatedsince Tuesday; and, as Manchester students come back on line afterthe Easter break, I am hoping that there will be more early next week.If you wish to submit your writing to the whole list, please address itdirectly to <[email protected]> If you would like to circulate it onlyto those people who have circulated their own writing, you will haveto send it to me via this CompuServe address.I think it is too early to identify any themes but some thoughts haveoccurred to me. I would like to find ways of describing and thinkingabout listservs without having to resort to an analogy of face-to-facesituations, but I am short of suitable metaphors.It seems to me that the listserv is like a very slow party thrown tocelebrate an obscure cultural event. Some of us know some people, butno-one knows everyone. We had to invite ourselves, and some of usmay be wondering why. We know that there is a pair of photographerswandering around, although they have not taken their cameras outyet. We suspect that there may be someone with a tape-recorder. We

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arrived at different times, and there was desultory conversation assome people introduced themselves. Some of the party have left andothers are hesitating around the door. For a long time very few peoplehave said or done anything. Lately, however, a few of us have startedto "dance", having left the security of the wall. Questions that occurto one of the dancers include: "Will anyone join us? Will they stay andwatch? Will they leave? What do they think of the dancing?" (Listserv,April 1966)

Silence is difficult to interpret, particularly in this electronic me-dium when there is nothing other than the words that people write.Disappointingly, but perhaps to be expected, this communication gen-erated only a couple of responses. By this time, however, the listservmanager realised that there was little point in trying to resurrectthis project as a viable method of establishing some sense of belong-ing to a community of adult educators. Between the two researchers,it was decided to move to a close and to seek some way of conducting,however briefly, an evaluation with two students in each institution.

Issues of Concern

Three possible issues of concern were identified: technology, volun-tary participation, and communication and community. The first twoare mundane but nevertheless important, and they will be dealt withbriefly; the other is of more significance and will receive greater con-sideration.

Technology

There are two aspects to the technology concern. The listserv man-ager had begun the project with a major assumption about the stu-dents: that they would be technologically literate and comfortablewith new uses of the technology. Not only were many members notso, but even those that were suffered to some extent from alienationfrom the software that brought them together. The researchers feltthat some people resented the invasiveness of the listserv—that theywere not able to control its input and, while they could manage theoutput, that is, their own writing, they had no sense of its use. Onestudent (not on this list) was persuaded to log on one afternoon bythe listerv manager in order to test his familiarity and comfort withthe system. The listserv manager saw that the student had over


1,000 unread messages. He could not be persuaded to read or deletethem, and he promptly logged off. The implication is that somehowopportunities to gain familiarity with the technology and its usesshould be provided, but away from the main activity so as not tocontaminate it with negative unrelated experiences. Mistakes, frus-trations, resentment need to be dealt with elsewhere.

In contrast, however, increasing numbers of people come to learn-ing experiences with greater exposure to technology. The Georgia re-searcher in this project described a related experience in her classin 1994 where there was both fear and discomfort expressed aboutusing an E-mail listserv to conduct National Issues Forums. By 1997when she switched to using Webconferencing software, the anxietyhad clearly evaporated. She had anticipated that students would ex-press dismay when she introduced the Web format. Nobody flinched,and the students were quite responsive and needed almost no direc-tion. The speed at which students (and faculty, for that matter) cometo terms with technology is a matter of interest and has been widelydiscussed. As Landow (1993) writes: "It took only 25 years for theoverhead projector to make it from the bowling alley to the classroom.I'm optimistic about academic computing; I've begun to see computersin bowling alleys" (p. 16).

Or as Stephen Ehrmann (1995) begins an article:

I've got two pieces of bad news about that experimental English compcourse where students used computer conferencing. First, over thecourse of the semester, the experimental group showed no progress inabilities to compose an essay. The second piece of bad news is that thecontrol group taught by traditional methods, showed no progress either,(p. 20)

Whichever way—and clearly there are some competing perspectiveshere—issues of familiarity with the technology and maybe, more im-portantly, comfort have to be addressed.

Voluntary Participation

It is a central precept of adult learning that participation is bestundertaken voluntarily. Graduate students and university academicsare no exception to this principle in activities like the internationallistserv dialogue. While participation in the listerv was intended tobe voluntary, it may be possible to discern from the dynamics of re-cruitment that there was a sense of pressure to participate. Whenfaculty say to students, "I think you might find it interesting to join


this exchange," the illocutionary force may be considerably strongerand set up a possibly subconscious resentment that later serves toundermine or even subvert the goal of the activity. This is a not anatypical response to coercive action and can be perceived as being asensible response to issues of power and ideology. An additional con-cern about voluntary activity is the tune demand. Students are busypeople addressing the immediate concerns about their courses. How-ever minimal additional demands are, they nevertheless represent acost in time and energy.

Communication and Community

Reason (1994c) argues that cooperative activity is an emergentprocess, that it takes ". . . time, skill and patience for full cooperationto develop . . ." (p. 54). This thinking was the origin of the decisionto encourage participants to begin to identify with others on the listthrough modest self disclosure, to help people to unlearn their"learned culture of silence" (p. 55). Davis (1996) has suggested thatthere need to be relationships, shared tasks, a sense of self and other,and some kind of shared space (although this may be virtual) for acommunity to develop. It may also be worth asking "What is thehuman capacity to connect with people we have never seen or met?"What characteristics did this listserv have that did not allow a senseof community to emerge? We think there were a number of contrib-uting factors.

Participation and Identification. The recruitment strategies appar-ently emphasised the rather elusive concepts of international adulteducation, shared research agendae, and exchange visits rather thanthe "otherness"of people. Accordingly there was no apparent sense ofthe individuals making up the listserv. Therefore members becamemanifest in disembodied text on the screen: no face, no family, norole—-just names and E-mail addresses. The attempted exchange rep-resented, perhaps, like "degenerate" forms of participation, describedby Reason as:

. . .those which in some senses rigidify, distort and close down possi-bilities [. . . rather than those which . . .] elaborate and develop, mul-tiplying possibilities of human experience, which encourage self-directedness and self-articulation; and which support communicationand communion. (1994b: p. 27)


Another feature of participation is the size of the group thatemerged, i.e., 47 members. In conventional face-to-face settings, thatsize of group can become interactive—by breaking down into smallersub-groups, for instance. However, that was not going to be possiblein this electronic space. The consequence was that the size of thegroup may have made interaction somewhat problematic, and thishad not been anticipated. Indeed, there had been a planning assump-tion that the group would be small. The number of potential 1 to(sub) group interactions in a group of this size is very large and thecapacity to maintain the impetus in the group was well beyond thecapability of the listserv manager.

Facilitation. To begin discussion two forms of autobiographical datawere invited from list members: basic biographical data and poten-tially more revealing accounts of critical incidents in adult education.The intention was two-fold: to break the ice in the same way in whichadult educators often initiate new classes into a sense of belongingand to provide individual members of the listserv with informationthat might form the basis of small group discussion via E-mail. Whilethe information provided would be of interest to members of the list-serv, it was not in itself subject to any systematic research activityalthough members of the list had been informed that participationwould be investigated in a number of ways.

The listserv manager had used both of these methods in a numberof P2F situations with no difficulty and had tested the approach andexplored its possible problems with an Adult Learning class at theUniversity of Georgia. The distanced facilitation, however, may haveleft a great many things unsaid: in F2F there is the opportunity torecapitulate, to repeat, to reassure. The listerv manager was mindfulof his resistance to redundancy in writing. In informal discussionwith another UGA colleague, he had been told that his facilitationtexts were "spare," a consequence of a personal writing style that hetried to rectify.

The possibility of the facilitation being intrusive and raising issuesof personal safety, trust, confidentiality, and comfort cannot be un-derestimated. The listserv manager reflected:

My own contribution to the task was something I delayed doing untilthe deadline; and it may be that I was resisting disclosure, even thoughI have done similar kinds of writing on a number of occasions. Myown uncertainties, however, were mitigated by recognition that, if noth-ing else, this would be an exercise in impression management: thatone of the consequences of the technology is the explicit opportunity


to censor, as well as the self-censorship that may arise from more sub-conscious motivations. My belief, supported by anecdotal evidence fromsome Manchester colleagues and explicit mention by one from UGA,was that we are in control of what we are prepared to share, muchmore so, perhaps, than we can in F2F interaction. (Journal, April 1996)

The other issue about facilitation is the nature of the moderator'srole. Overactive facilitation could suppress engagement as powerfullyas perceived periods of silence. There is some anecdotal experienceto draw on but not much empirical research; and, as will be arguedelsewhere, we cannot simply extrapolate from what we know aboutF2F facilitation to the virtual classroom.

Sense of Self: The Spectrum of Seriousness. It is clear from expe-rience on a number of lists over several years that people post mes-sages of varied personal significance. There are some who may feelthey are writing scripture for which they will be forever responsiblewhile others chat off-the-top-of-the-head with no real concern aboutaccountability or responsibility for the words or how they are read.As Holt, Kleiber and Swenson (1995) wrote:

. . .a poster to the Learning Organization listserv (Saunders, 1996)commented that electronic conferences may be more difficult for peoplewho take themselves very seriously. On the other hand, some individu-als type hastily giving insufficient thought to their reception. What isa good balance on this continuum of extreme fear of reception to non-chalant chatting?

One of the adult education students (cited with permission) in agraduate seminar at UGA held this conviction about ownership on-line:

The written word is owned by the writer and with that ownershipcomes responsibility. Writers are responsible for putting forth defensi-ble ideas, for instance. On the other hand, the readers of the writtenword bring expectations. We expect that the words we read representcommitment on the part of the writer. We never naturally assume ten-tativeness on a writer's part even though this may be a reality. Weexpect the written words to fall together cohesively and coherently andto reflect the best thinking of the writer at the time. We even expectthe words to endure over time. After all, since the words on the pagehave permanence, we bring tacit expectations that the ideas beneaththe words have permanence as well. The responsibilities and expecta-tions that accompany writing place pressure on a writer. It is this pres-sure that discourages me from participating in a virtual community. IfI am not ready to assume the responsibility because my ideas are not,in fact, well developed enough for public sharing, then I am reluctantto send my words into Cyberspace for all to read and judge.


While not agreeing entirely with the notion of authorial control ofmeaning and intent, it is possible to acknowledge that this is theperception of some writers, that they will act on it, and, as in thiscase, choose not to send a posting unless it is well formed and un-ambiguous.

Interventions. The listserv manager had assumed his role wouldbecome more passive after the discussion had begun. It never oc-curred to him that there would be conflicting agendae at work. Earlyin the planning it had been agreed that the Georgia research partnerwould deliberately take a back seat, participating as a member ofthe group, but not planning to make process interventions. Naively,the listserv manager made assumptions about a virtual group thathe would never make about a group, especially a large one, meetingF2F. Process interventions in F2F situations are inevitably designedto arrest the activity currently under way and to direct participants'attention to another point of discussion. The power of an interventionis related to a number of characteristics: the perceived status of itsorigin, its appositeness, and the extent to which it addresses the le-gitimate concerns of others in the group. The two linked interven-tions in the days immediately before the submission date for the firstpiece of writing were from high status individuals who hinted at con-cerns rather than spelling them out in detail. Equally possible, how-ever, they may also have reflected concerns of some members of thegroup. The listerv manager's experience with critical incident writingin F2F had made him aware of the anxieties and that public reflec-tion on those is part of the data. That the nature of a listserv em-powers all participants to make process interventions, however,presents an interesting challenge to structured activities on lists. Insome cases interventions can lead to flame wars which erupt fromtime to time, even on the most sedate lists (Davis, 1996). Reid (1991)adds the notion of the deconstruction of conventional boundaries, de-scribed by Keisler, Siegal and McGuire (1984) as having four distinctforms: an absence of regulating feedback, dramaturgical weakness,few social status cues and social anonymity, which deserves someconsideratibn. Offered as a feature of Internet Relay Chat these do,we believe, add explanation to the nature of interventions in moreasynchronous fora like listservs.

In considering the two crucial interventions, then, it is clear thatin F2F situations, feedback would have been evident in both direc-tions: the listserv manager may have been able to pick up some ofthe underlying ambivalence or hostility. The social status cues, while


evident—and indeed proclaimed—were not mediated by other inter-personal and paralinguistic features. Social anonymity is an inevita-ble consequence of computer mediated communication (CMC),enabling individuals to hide in the ubiquity of the processed word.True, these interventions were not anonymous, in that they weresigned, but to many participants in the listserv, the signatures gavelittle other than ascribed status. The fourth element, that of drama-turgical weakness, needs closer consideration.

It appears at first sight that any dramaturgical weakness wouldmanifest low intensity, low levels of significance, in some ways a de-ficiency in emotional strength and power. Dramaturgy, however, isabout form rather than content and the weakness of negative inter-ventions that bring a premature conclusion to the activity by desta-bilizing the plot. Hamlet killing Claudius in the first act would bea theatrical example of dramaturgical weakness. In the listserv, thecrucial interventions were dramaturgically weak—they brought theprocess to a premature conclusion, thereby, paradoxically, demon-strating their strength.

It could be true to say that the interventions are almost invariablymuch more powerful than their intention, that the channel of com-munication intensifies the communication beyond the illocutionaryforce. The implication of this is twofold: to accept intensification asan inevitable consequence of CMC—including its capacity to causedisruption and disarray, or to look for new models of intervention,addressed perhaps more to individuals, rather than any perceivedsense of the group.

Meaningfulness. The two students who wrote more extensivelyabout their experience of being on the list commented on the absenceof meaningfulness. It seems that while there was a degree of curi-osity about others, it did not extend to detailed consideration of theaccounts people wrote. Reports suggest that listserv members wouldscan but not engage with the texts. This accords with our experiencein a number of electronic fora; and, if it is a widespread phenomena,its significance is profound for some of the claims made for CMC asa significant force in education. There are implications for registerand length of contributions to listservs and for encouraging more ap-propriate kinds of messages.

Belonging. None of the respondents identified themselves as feelingpart of a community. One wrote " . . . people must really want todevelop community & be willing to work at if (E-mail correspon-dence). Another wrote:


What I think I have found difficult about UGAMU (the name of thelistserv) is the whole community aspect. It doesn't feel like one to me,and that may be something about a limited vision of what a communityis. I do have a feeling that it is an overused concept ... I think thatthis (the traditional notion of community) is a romanticized view basedon what I believe our culture has lost to its peril. However this hasnothing to do with an academic community which I guess must beabout intellectual sharing and supporting. I don't know whether I be-lieve a community is possible when you never meet the people. I'm noteven sure I want to. (E-mail correspondence)

For some people, belonging may stem from more intimate and com-plete contact than is possible on listservs, which provides only onechannel of communication, the words on the screen. In intuitive rec-ognition of this, in setting up a course that will have a substantialCMC element, F2F meetings have been included to overcome someof these barriers to the collective.

Group Dynamics and the Anti-Group. Those few people who wereactive on the listserv did have some of the ingredients of community:a proto-community based on an attempt to understand the sharedprocesses that were under way. This was, however, meta-communi-cative: discussions as to how the listserv could be made to achieveits purpose. Much of the remainder of the activity on the listservcould be characterised as distorted communication—the product ofpower and ideology (Habermas, 1972) and was actually silent. Silencein face-to-face encounters communicates powerfully, and physicalproximity can permit its interrogation. In cyberspace, however, youhave nothing upon which to base an interpretation. Fantasy—invari-ably present even in face-to-face communication—is all there is togo on.

Much of the positive feeling about E-mail and listserv is based ongood experiences with them. However, we have to remind ourselvesthat we have also had some negative experiences which we thinkcould be a consequence of assumptions made about a direct relation-ship between face-to-face communication and that which takes placein cyberspace. The listserv manager had experienced such a failurein one-to-one communication via E-mail.

He was given the opportunity to edit a collection of poems andactivities on the poet William Blake with a colleague who was goingto spend a semester teaching in the University of Wisconsin-RiverFalls. They had written together before and had a good relationshipthat enabled them to be brutally honest about one another's ideas.Indeed their honesty was the basis of their capacity to work quickly


and efficiently and to meet the exacting standards of commissioningeditors. On this occasion, they assumed that their success in the F2Fwould transfer easily to E-mail correspondence; and they startedwell, exchanging texts, notes and annotations. They then hit a prob-lem of interpretation of one of the poems and attempted to resolveit through dialogue—something they failed completely to achieve.Communication ceased almost immediately and did not resume untilthe colleague returned to England some months later.

In F2F they would have had the linguistic apparatus, supportedby their shared social context, to deal with the disagreement. At adistance, they accelerated the properties of the anti-group, describedas disruptive, anti-social and destructive (Nitsun, 1996) to the extentthat their communication was unable to flourish.

Another example of such an experience was the emergence of in-tergenerational tension, where one group of undergraduates and an-other of graduate students came together in electronic fora. Bothgroups expressed disappointment with the other's participation.There was very clear evidence of strong generational differences. Theyounger students perceived that parental-types were examining theircomments; and they made mention of some discomfort, anxiety, nerv-ousness, and conscientiousness in self-disclosing "online." The olderstudents blatantly mentioned that they found the others "young"Generation-X people. They did not easily connect with the experi-ences the younger students wrote about, found them impersonal, im-mature, naive, and felt a sense of alienation in the dialogue. Whenthe older students expressed themselves a bit more kindly, they men-tioned "different response patterns" from people who they felt hadlittle interest in participating in the political system and clearly hadless developed ideas about themselves and the world. The older stu-dents described the younger students' responses as "on the spot"rather than reflective and short vs. long. They felt their own mes-sages were more thoughtful, often longer though few in number andless frequent.

Nitsun (1996: 197) believes that the anti-group is almost an inevi-table feature of group life: indeed it is where groups derive some oftheir energy. But the energy has to be carefully channeled if it is toachieve useful outcomes. There was, we believe, considerable anti-group energy in this listerv; and it is a phenomenon which mightarise more easily in asynchronous electronic communication than inF2F situations.


Conclusion

The false assumption that was made about this experience wasthat this group would be easier to facilitate than any other, that itwould be driven by notions of international goodwill and technologi-cal ease. The reality is that groups are difficult and complex in F2F,and they can be more so in virtual space when a clear sense of otheris difficult to sustain. The temptation to facilitate as if the group isin actual space has to be resisted. We need to continue to explorenew ways of conceptualising groups in cyberspace through furtherexperiences and study.

Acknowledgments

The research associated with this paper was supported by a grantfrom the Research and Graduate School of Education, University ofManchester, United Kingdom.

References

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