While I do not intend to provide a detailed description of the Internet, its
history, available resources, or the, often hyped, potential for its future
use, in order to understand the context of the study, some background information
is necessary (Porter 1993b). After a short historical section, different types
of CMC will be briefly discussed (note 1).
With the linking of increasing numbers of academic sites, the structure and use changed radically, so that most of today's traffic has nothing to do with military work. The Internet expanded, through "academic institutions sharing research results, [evolving] into a medium for mixed academic, commercial, and personal uses" (Hoffman 1994:2), and became today's 'network of networks' (Laporte 1994, Schneider 1993). Three phases in this evolution have been identified (Gates 1993). From the mid-1970s to 80s, with a small group of researchers, linked by computer networks, it grew in the mid-1980s to early 1990s into almost a club. It became the domain of academic computing professionals, and the Internet as we now know it emerged, with networks of universities tied together by the 'backbone' of the National Science Foundation (NSF) net. From the early 1990s onwards, Gates (1993) sees the Internet having become a community, with millions of disparate users (including many nurses) having access to the facilities.
Much of the traffic on the Internet involves the retrieval of computer
files from remote sites, for example accessing the International Nursing
Library (Schneider 1993). However, a considerable proportion of the network
traffic involves person-to-person communication, via e-mail, computer conferences,
and discussion lists.
E-mail (electronic mail) describes an asynchronous, text-based electronic message (Rapaport 1991, Sproull & Keisler 1986), rapidly, and often informally (Watson 1994), sent from one individual to one or more recipients, over a computer network. It consists of two parts, a header (akin to an addressed envelope), and the content (Dippold 1994). The header is essential for delivery (and has some value in establishing context), but the content is, for most people, and for the purposes of this study, the important part.
Its textuality (similarity to either speech or writing), and the presence of different genres, are matters of some discussion (Yates 1994). It has advantages over what aficionados term 'snail-mail', as it can be sent round the world and received in seconds, allowing multiple messages to be sent in a very short time period, and over telephone communication of being available for reading at a time convenient to the recipient. Studies of business organisations' use of e-mail have found that many workers use it to contact even geographically close colleagues, seeing it being more efficient that unanswered phone calls and fruitless walks to empty offices (Walther 1992).
Proposals have been developed for formal guidelines, "netiquette", on
use of e-mail, especially in view of the potential for misunderstandings,
given its text-based nature, and the absence of phatic aspects, issues
that will be further discussed in Chapter 4.5. Conventions that have developed
through actual use include covering only one topic in a message, avoidance
of "flaming" (excessive abusive or obscene language), the effect of using
capitals to simulate shouting, and the use of emoticons or "smileys" to
convey phatic aspects (Updegrove 1991).
Computer conferences may occur in real-time, as FTF conferences, but
are usually asynchronous. They are usually moderated, can last a short
time or for many months, and may be open to many participants or to a restricted
group (Taylor 1990).
Lists share many features of both e-mail and computer conferencing, by allowing one-to-many communication (Kaye 1991). However, as will be seen in later discussion, while conferences are usually subdivided into specific topic areas, no such division occurs on a list, so frequently several themes are being discussed simultaneously. Kaye (1991:6) has likened CMC of this type to a "virtual seminar", wherein "a small group of articulate peers exchange ideas and information over a period of several months, in a text-based mode entirely free of any time or place constraints".
While important differences currently exist between the forms of CMC,
some believe that the distinctions are diminishing with the development
of increasingly sophisticated software (Keisler 1991).
Now that the range of facilities on the Internet has been briefly described, the next chapter reviews selected aspects of the literature discussing CMC.
Copyright: Peter J. Murray 1996, 1997, 2000
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