My Reaction
On Twitter @HardHead, @VincentR and myself have been discussing the Usenet and its use in communication research. Micheal Beam, or HardHead, posted his reaction paper from a political communication class we took together, so I figured I would follow his lead and put my reaction up. I take it in a completely different direction than him, but still interesting. To this I would also like to add there are also serious sampling issues in the Usenet pieces that I don’t directly address in the paper.
Anonymity and the Internet
The readings this week generally discussed how computer-mediated communication fits into deliberative theory. Specifically, a number of the authors examined the Usenet for its deliberative potential (Davis, 2005; Papacharissi, 2004; Wilhelm, 2000). Others more broadly examined the potential of CMC in general to spawn political communication (Ho & McLeod, 2008; Stromer-Galley, 2002). Lastly, Wright and Street (2007) looked at the design of CMC systems to understand the deliberative potential of those systems. Using these readings as a basis, this essay will argue for a greater understanding of the role of anonymity in online deliberation.