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Views of the Net (6,2)

September 1999  Margaret McLaughlin and Sheizaf Rafaeli, Editors

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Volume 5, Number 1 Related Articles

We speak to others through e-mail, or in chat rooms, or at an on-line wedding "as if" we were together. But where are we and where are those with whom we speak? Where do these conversations take place?    How do people in cyberspace picture one another? And how do expectations formed online compare with offline experiences?

   Online communities are produced around discourses and their existence is predicated upon the way networks of texts are able to signify meaning to the community and define it to external audiences.

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   Critics insist that traditional media organizations offer only illusions of interactivity on the Net. An exploratory content analysis of 100 U.S. online newspapers reveals that many provide only token interactive options.

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   The author suggests techniques for more systematic investigation of online community formation and for building stronger empirical research in a field where the presence of community is often simply assumed.

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