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WIRED FROSH
A Case Study of Electronic Community Building in a Freshman Dorm
© 1997 Richard Holeton, Stanford University
Abstract
Introduction
Conclusion
PDF of full
studyPortions
of this study have been presented at:
ED-MEDIA
99
The
1999 ResNet Symposium
The 1998 Young Rhetoricians Conference
The 1997 Computers and Writing Conference
The 1997 ResNet SymposiumFormal
paper "Constructive
'Noise in the Channel': Effects of Controversial Forwarded E-mail in
a College Residential and Virtual Community," ED-MEDIA 99 Conference
Proceedings
Article about "Wired Frosh"
in Stanford Magazine/Stanford Today Online, March-April 1998:
"Emerging
from the Electronic Cave" by Janet Basu
DATA and DISCUSSION:
01 Questions, claims and assumptions
about CMC, students, and community 02 Survey
and responses 03 Perceptions of Usefulness
of Media and Actual E-mail Postings by Subject Category 04
Social Purposes of Survey Categories 05a
Perceived Usefulness of E-mail List vs. Other Media by Social Purpose (All Respondents)
05b Proportion of Actual Messages by Social
Purpose 06 Proportion of Forwarded Messages
by Social Purpose 07 Metadiscussion as Primary
and Secondary Content of Messages 08 Participation
on E-mail List by Gender and Social Purpose 09a
Perceived Usefulness of E-mail List vs. Other Media by Social Purpose (By Gender)
09b Actual Use of E-mail List by Women and
Men According to Social Purpose 10a Perceived
Usefulness of E-mail List vs. Other Media by Social Purpose (By Self-Described
F2f/Overall Participation) 10b Actual
Use of E-mail List by Self-Described "Most Active" and "Least Active"
Community Members 11 "Core Group,"
"Regular," and "Lurker" Participation by Student Residents
on E-mail List 12 "Critical Dialogue
Core Group" Participation 13 Core Group
Participation by Gender 14 CRITICAL DIALOGUE
SAMPLE THREADS: Introduction: Hillary and Ronald 15
CRITICAL DIALOGUE SAMPLE THREADS:
Social and Political Issues: Rape and Gender 16
CRITICAL DIALOGUE SAMPLE THREADS:
Social and Political Issues: Neo-Nazis and Free Speech 17
CRITICAL DIALOGUE SAMPLE THREADS:
Dorm Community Issues: "Screw Your Roommate" 18
CRITICAL DIALOGUE SAMPLE THREADS:
Dorm Community Issues: Sexual Harassment 19
CRITICAL DIALOGUE SAMPLE THREADS:
Dorm Community Issues: Death and Birth 20
Dedication and Acknowledgments 21 Selected
Quotes 22 References [Return
to top]
COPYRIGHT
NOTICE All contents
© Copyright 1997 by Richard Holeton and Stanford University. Permission to
disseminate this study for educational and other non-commercial purposes will
be granted provided that you write
me an e-mail message with your request. Please
e-mail
or write me with URLs that you link to this study.
ABSTRACTWhile
"virtual communities" have been studied as separate entities, only recently
have we had the chance to observe the social effects of new technologies in face-to-face
(f2f) living groups. With increasing dependence on computer-mediated communication
(CMC) in fully-wired college residences, critics fear that students are becoming
more isolated. But CMC also has the potential to complement and extend f2f forms
of interaction, to become a tool for building, rather than destroying, social
relations. In a case study of a Stanford University dorm e-mail list, I will analyze
how college students who live together use and perceive electronic discussion
in the context of other community-building tools.Back to
contents INTRODUCTIONMust
students who increasingly depend on electronic technologies such as e-mail become
more isolated, as some have claimed and many fear? Or what is the potential for
computer-mediated communication (CMC) to complement and extend other forms of
interaction and become a tool for building, rather than destroying, social relations?
How is CMC used similarly and differently when participants actually live together
in a face-to-face (f2f) community, instead of only communicating at a distance?
These questions are increasingly relevant beyond academia, as many employees combine
electronic and f2f communication in their jobs and many communities based on physical
proximity have established electronic networks with extensive online resources
and discussion areas. See 01: Questions, claims, and assumptions
about CMC, students, and community for my specific research questions.
BackgroundRinconada House (Wilbur Hall) at Stanford University
is an all-freshman residence of 94 students (89 frosh plus 5 upperclass staff
members) where my wife and I served as faculty Resident Fellows (RFs) for seven
years, from 1990-91 through 1996-97. Rinconada -- which also claims to have been
the first college dorm in the world with a home page on the Web -- has maintained
an active e-mail discussion list since 1993-94. Based on a study of that list
for the academic year 1995-96, I will analyze how college students who lived together
used and perceived this form of electronic discussion; I will emphasize constructive,
community-building uses of CMC and higher-level uses of CMC I define as "critical
dialogue."Stanford was one of the first residential universities in
the nation to achieve the "port per pillow" standard for network wiring,
meaning that all or nearly all students have an individual ethernet connection
in their room in addition to shared, networked dorm computer clusters. The student
residences combine a well-developed technological infrastructure and technical
support with a very active residential education system. The freshman dorms are
composed, demographically, as multicultural microcosms of the entering class,
and they generally form cohesive and enthusiastic communities. These communities
are by no means conflict-free, however, and during 1995-96 Rinconada residents
negotiated a number of challenging social, political, and personal issues, including
pornography, free speech, a potential grape boycott on campus, a sexual harassment
allegation within the house, and the sudden death of one of their dormmates. These
and many other issues found both moving and controversial expression on the dorm
e-mail list, along with the more accustomed and pedestrian (at least to e-mail
veterans) assortment of announcements, chain letters, forwarded college humor,
and occasional "flaming" or swapping of insults. MethodologyThe
study is based on a complete archive of the 1995-96 e-mail list a
survey filled out by 75 residents in May, 1996, exploring their perceptions about
the usefulness of electronic media in the context of other communication forms
used by the dorm community (see 02: Survey and responses)
my anecdotal experience and judgment as a participant-observer of the list
and the dorm community, leader of the residence staff, former composition teacher
with extensive classroom-CMC experience, and current information resources specialist
Once I obtained support for the study from the Office of the Vice Provost
for Student Affairs, Residential Education, and Residential Computing (see 20:
Acknowledgments), I followed the Stanford protocol for human-subject research
and requested consent from all the participants to use (a) their e-mail postings
to the dorm list, and (b) their survey data. I promised to keep their identities
private and have used pseudonyms here and in all reporting of the study.I
obtained consent to use e-mail data from 85 of 89 of the (former) freshman residents
and all five of the former upperclass student staff members. With the able help
of my student assistant Jason Herthel, I organized the e-mail and survey data
into a FileMaker Pro database from which we obtained all the measures and averages
reported in the study. The staff members' messages to the e-mail list (along with
my wife's and mine) were eliminated from most of the statistical measures, insofar
as it was part of our job to monitor and actively make announcements and other
postings to the e-mail list.Back to contents
CONCLUSIONDespite prominent gender disparities in participation and
the heavy proportion of discussion carried on by a small core group of participants
-- on the list overall and for critical dialogue especially -- the dorm e-mail
list was a very valuable medium for community-building. Residents found the list
useful for a wide variety of social purposes, from housekeeping to negotiating
group norms, discussing political issues, and grieving for a dead friend. Not
just core group members, but lurkers and shy people as well benefitted from a
substantial amount and impressive quality of critical dialogue (i.e., discussion
of social, political, and dorm community issues). The e-mail list was very valuable
for particular individuals who found ways to work out personal tensions, feelings,
and growth partly through this medium, in turn becoming part of and benefitting
the community as a whole.Here are more specific conclusions in response
to each of my research questions (see 01 Questions, claims
and assumptions about CMC, students, and community).(1) Computer activities
and community building are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, computer-mediated
communication (CMC) can usefully complement the other, traditional community-building
tools in a residential setting, such as small-group interaction, house meetings,
telephone calls, and paper fliers. See 02, 03.(2)
The increasing use of computers on college campuses doesn't necessarily tend to
isolate students or negatively affect social relations and sense of community.
On the contrary, residents of Rinconada used the dorm e-mail list in highly social
ways and, moreover, found the list more useful for most social purposes than many
traditional, face-to-face media. See 02, 03.(3)
A dorm mailing list can be very useful for the kinds of critical dialogue encouraged
in academic culture. Announcements, chain letters, forwarded jokes, etc. need
not preclude higher-order uses of CMC. On the contrary, forwarded messages can
provoke thoughtful, substantive discussion about social and political issues.
See 04, 05, 06(4)
Metadiscussion or "talk about talk" is not necessarily a distracting
waste of time and bandwidth that disrupts community building. On the contrary,
in a residential setting, metadiscussion can be a valuable exercise in negotiating
norms and conventions. See 07.(5) In the residential
setting as in other electronic and f2f conversational spaces, women and men tend
to have different perceptions about the usefulness of CMC and these perceptions
are reflected in their different uses of the medium. Men tend to dominate the
electronic conversation spaces in the dorm setting (as in other settings previously
studied), unlike in some classroom uses of CMC where participation may not be
voluntary. See 08, 09,
11, 12, 13.(6)
In the residential setting, CMC can encourage participation by those who are more
shy in f2f interaction. See 10, 11,
12.(7) In the residential setting, while a
small core group of active participants still may contribute the majority of messages,
this core group is not identical with what might be called the f2f core group,
i.e. the most active or gregarious members of the f2f community. Hence overall
participation in the community can be widened with electronic tools. 11,
12, 13.
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