The Anthropology of Online Communities Author(s): Samuel M. Wilson and Leighton C.

Peterson Reviewed work(s): Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31 (2002), pp. 449-467 Published by: Annual Reviews Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4132888 . Accessed: 29/03/2012 08:05
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Annu. Rev. Anthropol.2002. 31:449-67 doi: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085436 CopyrightQ 2002 by AnnualReviews. All rightsreserved Firstpublishedonline as a Review in Advance on June 14, 2002

THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF ONLINE COMMUNITIES

The atAustin, Texas 78712; Austin, Department ofAnthropology, University ofTexas email: s.wilson@mail.utexas.edu; leighton@mail.utexas.edu media, communication, Key Words Internet, computer-mediated cyberspace, information technology U Abstract Information andcommunication basedon the Internet technologies have enabledthe emergence of new sortsof communities and communicative of the attention of anthropological researchers. Depractices-phenomena worthy of therevolutionary nature of theInternet andtheenormous spiteearlyassessments transformations it would thechanges havebeenlessdramatic andmore about, bring embedded in existing andpower relations of everyday exlife.Thisreview practices researchers' and within and some plores questions, approaches, insights anthropology relevant related andit seeksto identify newdirections forstudy. The fields, promising conclusion is that thetechnologies theInternet, allthetextand and general comprising media thatexistwithin cultural is thus it, arein themselves products. Anthropology well suited to thefurther of thesenew,andnotso new,phenomena. investigation

M.Wilson Samuel andLeighton C.Peterson

INTRODUCTION
In thelastfifteenyears,thegrowth of theglobalcomputer network known as the has facilitated Internet the rapidemergence of onlineinteractions of dispersed of peoplewithshared interests. Theseonlinegroups exhibita widerange groups of characteristics and servea varietyof purposes, fromsmallgroupsengaged in tightlyfocuseddiscussions of specifictopics,to complexcreated worldswith hundreds of simultaneous to millions of users linked participants, by an interest in markets or exchange networks for goods andinformation. Thesenew media collectivesmightbe mobilized to further or to bring particular politicalagendas of members familial or ethnic or together dispersed groups, theymightbe organizedaround or multinational interests. This commodity consumption corporate article addresses thephenomenon of Internet-based and groups collectives, generto as onlinecommunities. In reviewing ally referred anthropological approaches to thesegroups, we mustraiseseveral Howhavescholars questions: approached onlinecommunities andonlinecommunication in general? of comIs theconcept
munity itself misleading?How are issues of power and access manifestedin this arena?And given thatthe Internet andthe communication technologiesbasedupon it-as well as all the texts andothermediathatexist there-are themselvescultural
0084-6570/02/1021-0449$14.00 449

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0 PETERSON WILSON approachto these phenomenanecessarilydiffer products,will an anthropological from othertypes of anthropological investigation? interestin InternetAs is the case in otheracademicdisciplines,anthropology's based social and communicativepractices is relatively new, and a coherent anthropologicalfocus or approachhas yet to emerge. Despite the early interestin new media and Internetphenomenaand an emerging anthropologicalliterature, techworkson computingandInternet therehave been relativelyfew ethnographic of mainstream The relative anthropological scarcity nologies withinanthropology. researchon the Internetand computingreflectsthe fact that anthropologyhas not have poplayed a centralrole in studiesof mass mediain the past;anthropologists have viewed to culture(Dickey 1997) or sitioned media as peripheral technology in general as a context for, ratherthan a centralpartof, culture(Aronowitz 1996, Hakken 1999, Latour 1992, Pfaffenberger1992). As a result, much of our unandcommunication of new information technologycomes fromother derstanding withinthe interactions disciplinesthroughresearchinto online computer-mediated has been commonlyreferred of the Internet,whose locus of interaction framework remainintrigued,as they long have to as cyberspace.Nevertheless,anthropologists been, by the nexus of culture,science, and technology. Indeed, anthropologyis uniquely suited for the study of socioculturallysituated online communicationwithin a rapidly changing context. Anthropological multileveled,and multimethodologiesenable the investigationof cross-cultural, and collective identity;and of individual constructions sitedphenomena; emerging the culturallyembeddednatureof emergingcommunicativeand social practices. approachto the issues of new Recently therehave been calls for an ethnographic thatis timely andindispensableas we begin to theorizethe somedia, an approach cioculturalimplicationsof new communication technology(DiMaggioet al. 2001, Escobar 1994, Hakken 1999, Kottak 1996, Miller & Slater2000). The following sections addressanthropologicaland relatedresearchdealing with the following broadinvestigativetopics: the ways in which informationtechnology and media are themselves culturalproducts,the ways thatindividualand communityidentities are negotiatedon- and offline, and the dynamics of power and access in the context of new communicationsmedia.

THE INTERNET REVOLUTION

Throughmost of the 1980s and 1990s, the conviction was widespreadthat the commediumcomprisinginter-networked growingandevolving communications and social of transformation fundamental the and enable would porapid puters the Internetregardedthe litical orders.Much of the early literaturesurrounding new technology as revolutionaryin both its technical innovation and its broad social and political implications(Benedikt 1991, Gore 1991, Negroponte 1995). Early commentatorsconceived of a "cyberspace"as a monolithic cyberreality, "everywhereyet nowhere, as free-floatingas a cloud" (Economist 2001, p. 9).

THEANTHROPOLOGY OFONLINE COMMUNITIES 451 Rheingold's importantwork The Virtual Communityanticipatedthe Internet's "capacityto challenge the existing political hierarchy'smonopoly on powerful communications media, and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy" (1996) arguedthatelectroniccommuni(Rheingold 1993). Kirshenblatt-Gimblett cations separatemodem andpostmodemcommunication; Poster(1990) discussed the potential of virtualrealities in alteringour perceptionsof reality in a postindustrialworld; and Castells (1996) has suggested that informationtechnologies representa new informationage, which is a common perspectiveamong contemporaryscholars(Lyon 1988, Webster1995). A genre of science fiction known as cyberpunkenvisioned even more farbothutopianandOrwellian,in whichmuchof anindividreachingtransformations, ual's social interactions would takeplace in virtualspaces. Gibson'sNeuromancer (Gibson 1984) defined and describedthe idea of cyberspacefor a generationof readers.Otherworks such as Sterling'sMirrorshadescollection (Sterling 1986) and Stephenson'sSnow Crash (Stephenson 1992) continuedto fuel the popular imagination.These inspiredvisions resonatedin such nonfictionworks as Stone's The Warof Desire and Technologyat the Close of the Mechanical Age (Stone 1995), Turkle'sLife on the Screen (1995), or Dery's Flame Wars(Dery 1994) and however, Escape Velocity(Dery 1996). At the beginningof the twenty-first century, it appearsthatthe salience of the most extremeof these earlyrevolutionary visions is in decline, overtaken by whatMargolis& Resnick(2000) call the "normalization of cyberspace." As Agre (1999) notes with referenceto Neuromancer,"Gibsonfamously defined cyberspaceas a space apartfrom the corporealworld-a hallucination.But the Internetis not growingapartfrom the world,but to the contraryis increasingly embeddedin it."By 2002, for example,the samepowerfulcorporations thatcontrol offline news content dominatedInternet-based news sources, and they accounted for the vast majorityof news-relatedpages served (http://www.nua.com). Some anthropologistshave arguedthat scholarshiphas echoed too closely the popular discourseandnotionsof virtualworlds.Hakkenpointsto uncriticalappropriations of the popularrhetoricon technologyin much of the scholarlyInternetresearchrhetoricthathas created"multiple,diffuse, disconnecteddiscourseswhich mirror the hype of popularcyberspacetalk"(Hakken1999). The disparateapproachesto new media and Internetstudies also reflect the ephemeralnatureof the new media, the often elusive and ambiguous constructions of individualandcollective identitiesmediatedby these technologies,andthe problemof gainingan ontologicalfooting withinrapidlyobsolescingtechnologies. Internetinterfaces such as multi-userdomains (MUDs), MUD, Object-Oriented (MOOs), and Usenet-media in existence before the WorldWide Web that have been the focus for scholarlyresearch-quickly can become irrelevant,especially as increasingnumbersof users become connected,beginningtheirInternetexperiences with the latest technologies. would inform and emSimilarly, the optimistic notion that the Intemrnet power individuals worldwide, while subvertingexisting power structures,may

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WILSON PETERSON the power of states to control informationaccess. Although there underestimate have been examples of effective use of the Internetby small groups-such as the Zapatista movement's successful use of the Internetto gain support for their or the survivalof Belgrade's web-based Radio B92 cause (http://www.ezln.org) in the late 1990s (http://www.b92.net)--inmany countriestherehave been intensive stateefforts(of widely varyingeffectiveness)to regulateandcontrolInternetbased access to information. Among anthropologists, early reactionsto visions of online utopia were also skeptical,pointing to issues of class, gender,or race that would impede equal access (Escobar 1994, Gray & Driscoll 1992, Kottak 1996, Pfaffenberger1988, Robins & Webster 1999), and warned of overly optimistic predictionsfor egalitariancommunicationand social change. Othersscholarsbegan pointing to the potentiallynegative effects of continuousvirtualexperience (Boal 1995, Heim 1993, Kroker& Weinstein1994), which they fearedwould lead behaviorin postmodernsociety. to furtheralienation,anomie, and antisQcial

Internet Terminologyand Ephemerality

In a newly developingfield, terminologypresentssome problems.The confusion of terminologyfromother surrounding jargonis compoundedby the appropriation academicfields and literarygenres, includingscience fiction and popularculture. For this review, we are reluctantto label or characterizeparticulartechnologies or applicationswith great specificity because they may no longer exist in a few and uses years. At a fundamentallevel, however, we refer to the infrastructure of the global networkof computers,or what is generallydefined as the "network This substrate of networks"(Uimonen2001), as the Internet. supportsa numberof the WorldWideWeb-email and communication-oriented technologies,including thatis, data in the form of a text and graphic"page"storedon harddrives or web web browser software. servers, availableto anyone runningprotocol-translating refersto the physicalglobal infrastructure In the workswe have reviewed,Internet is put, including the as well as the uses to which the Internetas infrastructure WorldWide Web, email, and online multipersoninteractivespaces such as chator interactionsmediated rooms (DiMaggio et al. 2001, p. 308). Communications to as are often referred these media, which, following Spitulnik by applications (2001, p. 143), is "best defined by what it is not: face-to-face communication" (cf. Hannerz 1992). Media subcategoriesinclude mass media, alternativemedia, and print media. New media as used in this paper is anothersubset comprising digital-basedelectronic media-multimedia CD ROMs, the Internet,and video games. These definitionsare necessarilyflexible and open to refinementbecause both the field and the phenomenonare changing so rapidly.As this review was being was changingas rapidlyas it hadin the preceding writtenin early2002, the Internet decade. Internettrafficwas doubling annually,as it had been since about 1994, and the demographyof online users was also changing. Until the late 1990s the nations, majorityof userswere locatedin the UnitedStatesandotherindustrialized

THEANTHROPOLOGY COMMUNITIES 453 OFONLINE buttherewas a trendtowardchange.Englishlanguageuse may havebeen surpassed by other languages in 1999 and as of late 2001, people in the United States and Canadaaccountedfor only about35% of the estimated513 million Internetusers worldwide(http://www.nua.com/surveys/how many_online/index.html). researchconductedin the early days of personalcomputingand Furthermore, Internetaccess reflects technologies thatare physically and semioticallydifferent from subsequenttechnologies,resultingin an academicdilemma:On one level, we arenot talkingaboutthe same Internet; on anotherlevel, we aretalkingaboutsimilar social processes andpractices.In orderto addressthis issue, we are suggesting researchthat focuses on social processes and emergingcommunicativepractices ratherthan on specific user technologies. From that beginning, one strategyfor research is to explore how and if local users are employing and defining terms such as Internet,cyberspace,and the Web, and to explore "how diversely people experiencesimilartechnologies"(Markham1998, p. 114). media, interface,or application-which will conRegardlessof the particular tinue to change in the coming years-general categories of communicationwill persist,includingone person-to-one(as in sendinganemailmessage), one-to-many in a discussionfo(as in publishinga Webpage), andmany-to-many (participating of communication us to to the nature These attention rum). categories require pay The of communicative and online interactions. communication technolopractices that use of the Internet's infrastructure share some characteristics. make special gies Thus, they offer special possibilities and constraintsfor communicativepractices andsocial interaction andprovidea contextfor emergingformsof communication.

AS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CULTURAL (RE)PRODUCTION

What is missing from new media literatureis the link between historicallyconstituted socioculturalpractices within and outside of mediated communication and the languagepractices,social interactions,and ideologies of technology that emerge from new informationand communicationtechnologies. In orderto address this issue, we shouldheed those who view Internetspaces andtechnologies as "continuouswith and embedded in other social spaces" that "happenwithin mundanesocial structures butthatthey canandrelationsthatthey may transform not escape" (Miller & Slater 2000, p. 5). For anthropology'scontributionto the to follow those who seek to unstudyof onlinepractices,it may be moreproductive derstandthe offline social, cultural,andhistoricalprocesses involvedin the global flows of information 2000) andin the diffusion, (Brown& Duguid 2000, Garfinkel development,and acceptance of new technologies (Escobar 1994, Latour 1996, Pfaffenberger1992, Uimonen 2001, Winston 1998). Such an approachinvolves bringing researchback from cyberspace and virtual reality into geographical,social spaces, to address a variety of issues such as the ways in which new participantsare socialized into online practices;how gendered and racialized identities are negotiated, reproduced,and indexed in

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WILSON PETERSON and how Internetand computingpracticesare becoming noronline interactions; malized or institutionalizedin a variety of contexts. For anthropologyand its developing engagement with new media studies, however, the nature of local of and within these new global media should still remaina questransformations tion for ethnographicresearch and analysis, and the recursive relationshipbetween virtual and offline interactionscannot be ignored (Marshall 2001). Local responses to Internettechnologies will obviously vary, and even constricting consequences spacesopenuproomfor opposingdiscourses(Gal 1989), unintended (Bourdieu1977, Giddens 1979), or new dimensionsof social change.It is perhaps too soon to make assertions and value judgments about systems and practices that are only beginningto emerge and for which we lack even a sharedsemantic framework.

Internet as Media
One way to situatecomputingand Internetpracticesis to comparethem with pretechnologies, as new forms of technoviously existing media and communication An anthropological interaction. human and mediated approach language logically that builds upon the work of visual anthropologyand the anthropologyof mass in media andculturalstudies,is one such productive media, as well as approaches which to view in phenomenaof online interactions. vantagepoint Much of the work on new media has been interdisciplinary, originatingmany times in communicationand media studies, and often called computer-mediated communication(CMC) research.These scholarsrevealedchanging communicative practices online, which were seen to be either limited (Hiltz et al. 1986) or determined(Rice 1987) by the technology. Like much of the early Internet research,this early work reflects the popularrhetoricof the new medium's virtualpotentialsand tendsto position online communication away from othersocial excommunication Morerecentinvestigationsof computer-mediated interactions. are and how interactions interactions can communication how online change plore remain situated Such contexts local studies, however, (Cherny 1999). shapedby in online communication,analyzed throughtexts generatedin chatrooms,news groups,MOOs,and othermulti-userdomains(MUDs). These interfacesrepresent but one of many availablemediatedcommunicationtechnologies on the Internet, andtraditional which includepicturesandgraphics,online verbalcommunication, media like television and radio. We can productivelydraw from CMC researchwhile drawing anthropological questions to these phenomenaand maintainingimportantdistinctions (Morton 2001). CMC researchfocuses on social process and communicativepractice but has been situated within theories and methods dissimilar to anthropology. Some anthropologistsclaim that media and culturalstudies scholars lack a nuof ethnography andculture(Ruby2000)--methods andconancedunderstanding cepts which they increasingemploy--leading to a focus insteadon dichotomiesof hegemony and resistance, production and reception, and of mass media and

THEANTHROPOLOGY OFONLINE COMMUNITIES 455 alternativemedia (McEachern1998). This approachhindersthe situatedanalysis of local culturaland media phenomena.Ginsburgsuggests an important locus for contribution to media studies: To "break the 'massness' of the anthropological up media ... by recognizing the complex ways in which people are engaged in processes of makingand interpreting media worksin relationto theircultural,social, and historicalcircumstances" (Ginsburg1994a, p. 8). In the most-oftencited work on the topic, Spitulnik(1993) calls for continuing analyses of powerrelations,global capital,andthe role of subaltern/minority peoples in the emergenceof new mediaprocesses andproducts(see also Dickey 1997, Hannerz1992, Nichols 1994). The termmediascape,coined by ArjunAppadurai (1990), offers one way to describeandsituatethe role of electronicandprintmedia in "global culturalflows," which are fluid and irregularas they cross global and local boundaries. ForAppadurai, mediascapeindexesthe electroniccapabilitiesof productionanddissemination,as well as "theimages of the worldcreatedby these media" (Appadurai1990, p. 9). Ginsburgdraws from Appaduraito theorize the position of the indigenousmedia in Australiaand arguesthat a mediascape"helps to establish a more generativediscursivespace ... which breakswhat one might call the fetishizingof the local" (Ginsburg1994b, p. 366). This model drawnfrom Appaduraiand Ginsburghas many benefits for analyses of Internetcommunication, as one way to drawcyberspaceback into offline processes and practicesand a way to incorporate new media practiceswith otherforms of media.

Community
As has been the case for some time in anthropology,community is a difficult focus for study, generally because it seems to imply a false circumscription and coherence.Individualsbelong to many communities,boundedto differentextents and in varyingways. In some cases the term suggests, as in the communitystudies of the 1940s and 1950s, that the defined entity was reasonablycomplete and self-contained. The assessment then [see Foster's (1953) critique of Redfield's (1947) isolated "folk"societies] and more recently (Gupta& Ferguson1997) has been that an analytical emphasis on a community's boundedness and isolation usually masks significantinteractionsbetween the individualsof that community andothers,as well as the heterogeneityof the communityitself (Appadurai1991). A more fluid concept of communityfits well within ethnographicexplorationsin multisitedsituationswith complex, spatiallydiverse communities(Marcus 1995) and translocalsites (Hannerz1998). Just as Wolf (1982) rejectedthe conception of culturalgroups as "hardand roundbilliardballs"bouncing off of one another, and Barthes (1992) recognized the asymmetrical,indirect connections that knit communitiestogether,we simply acknowledgethat individualswithin any community are simultaneouslypart of other interactingcommunities, societies, or cultures. In the case of Internet-mediated communicationwithin a group, constituted around some shared interest or condition, the problem is compounded.Within

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0 PETERSON WILSON the scholarlyliteratureon Internetcommunication,a debatehas continuedabout whetheronline, virtual,or otherwisecomputer-mediated communitiesare real or & Colemen Calhoun Markham 1991, 1991, 1998, Oldenburg imagined (Bordieu 1989, Rheingold 1993, Thomsenet al. 1998). This debateexploredwhetherthese sorts of community are too ephemeralto investigate as communitiesper se, or whether the nature of the communicationmedium made them somehow quite differentfrom the face-to-facegroupingstraditionally thoughtof as communities. Rhinegold(1993) suggestedthatonline communitieswere replacingpublic spaces As Agre observed,"[s]o such as pubs andcaf6s as loci of public social interaction. long as we persist in opposing so-called virtualcommunitiesto the face-to-face communities of the mythical opposite extreme, we miss the ways in which real communitiesof practiceemploy a whole ecology of media as they thinktogether aboutthe mattersthatconcernthem"(Agre 1999, p. 4). Indeed,referenceto "communities of practice"(Lave & Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998) or "communitiesof interest"(Brown & Duguid 1991, Uimonen 2001) shows the wide range of disciplinaryinterestin the natureof online communities,with similardiscussionsgoing on in education,management,cognitive psychology, and other fields (Fernback 1999). We agree that a focus on interactionsthat take place online to the exclusion of those that do not is counterproductive. The idea that a community was defined by face-to-face interactionwas effectively challengedlong ago by scholars of the developmentof nationalism(Anderson1983) and transnationalism (Basch et al. 1994, Hannerz1996). An online/offlineconceptualdichotomy [for example Castells' (1996) "networksociety"] is also counterto the directiontaken within recent anthropology,which acknowledgesthe multiple identities and negotiated roles individualshave within differentsociopoliticalandculturalcontexts.We are not suggestingthatthis pointhas been completelyoverlookedin Internet research, as scholarscontinueto researchthe developmentof online communitieswithinthe communities(Agre & Schuler1997, Hamman2000). Specontextof geographical for political action cific case studies such as Kuwaitiwomen's uses of the Internet (Wheeler 2001), Americanteenage datingpractices in chat rooms (Clark 1998), and a study of the norms and practices of communitymaintenancein an online lesbian caf6 (Correll1995) illustratehow offline social roles and existing cultural ideologies are played out, and sometimesexaggerated,in online communication. We are suggesting, however, that closer attentionbe given to deconstructing dichotomies of offline and online, real and virtual,and individualand collective. An important in communications andsopartof the researchgoing on, particularly for involves the new media's online and the communitybuilding ciology, potential has taken or take this & Schuler Caldwell 1997, 2000, might patterns process (Agre Correll1995, Ess & Sudweeks2001, Jones 1998, Rheingold1993, Schuler 1996). Ourview, and one thatseems most consonantwith currentanthropological theory and practice,is that the distinctionof real and imaginedor virtualcommunityis not a useful one, and that an anthropologicalapproachis well suited to investigate the continuumof communities,identities,and networksthatexist-from the

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most cohesive to the most diffuse-regardless of the ways in which community membersinteract.

Identity
Withinsociology andpsychology, as well as in morepopulargenres, considerable attentionhas been given to the idea that virtual spaces allow for fundamentally new constructionsof identity:Interactive chatroomsand online spaces were often seen to be gender-neutral, egalitarianspaces. Turkledescribedonline interaction where as an individual could take on multiple identities in ways spaces places never before possible and indeed bring aboutchanges in conventionalnotions of identity itself (Turkle 1984, 1995). Haraway(1993) conceived of entirely new constructionsof individualitybased on cyborgs, or hybrids of machine and human. This workhad implicationsfor the virtualindividual,especially in the realm of sexuality, and deprivileges "nature," sexual reproduction,and identity of the identifiable self discrete, (Haraway1993). Morse investigatedthe implicationsof for cyberspace subjectivity,identity,and presence (Morse 1998). With reference to Peter Steiner'sfamous New Yorkerdrawing(Figure 1), online identities were seen to be infinitelymalleable. Of course, identities are negotiated,reproduced,and indexed in a variety of ways in online interactions,and these often cannot be understoodwithout considering the offline context. As Agre (1999) notes, "so long as we focus on the limited areas of the internetwhere people engage in fantasy play that is intentionally disconnected from their real-world identities, we miss how social and professional identities are continuousacross several media, and how people use those several media to develop their identities in ways that carry over to other settings"(Agre 1999, p. 4). Severalresearchersare exploring the ways in which online interactionsare influencedby offline power relationsand constructionsof identity, which involve the explorationof gender (Brook & Boal 1995, Correll 1995, Dietrich 1997, O'Brien 1999, Wellman& Gulia 1999, Wheeler 2001) and race and racializeddiscourses (Burkhalter 1999, Ebo 1998, Kolko et al. 2000) in a variety of ways. Scholars have also viewed online identities as directly tied to the notion of credibility,context, and frame in the explorationof real vs. virtual identities (Markham1998, O'Brian 1999). Nevertheless,this is an area in which a greatdeal more could be done. Online groupscan also be centeredaroundoffline ethnic or nationalidentities, and researchershave explored this issue in a variety of contexts-for example, the ways in which Tongans (Morton 1999, 2002) or Inuit (Christensen 1999) createsharedspaces in online interaction. The natureof computer-mediated interactions will not merely recreateoffline interactions,and "online groups may be significantlydifferentto their offline communities"(Morton2001, p. 4), and it is user is not always privilegingthe same naimportantto consider that an Intemrnet tional or ethnic identityin every online interaction.Multipleparticipatory frames and identities are availableand used by a wide varietyof Intemrnet users in a wide

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"Onthe Internet, nobodyknowsyou'rea dog."

Figure 1 PeterSteiner'sdrawingfromthe New Yorker, July 5, 1993. @ 2002 The New Yorker Collectionfromcartoonbank.com. All RightsReserved. variety of contexts. We are suggesting an approachfor researchin this area,best termedcontextualizedidentities (ratherthanperformed,negotiated,or contested) to breakthroughthe virtual/realdichotomy of online identity.

Communication and Practice

Any investigationinto the natureof online communities involves language and communicativepractice. The most comprehensiveoverview of the language of

THEANTHROPOLOGY OFONLINE COMMUNITIES 459 new media is Crystal's (2001) synthesis of emergent communicativepractices theInternet. is a revolution,therefore, surrounding Crystalstatesthat"ifthe Internet it is likely to be a linguisticrevolution" and notes the of language(p. x), importance based researchon new media technologies. Using English-languagedata such as andbulletinboardposts, Crystalassertsthatnew emails, chatroom transcriptions, varieties of language are indeed emerging from new technologies, but suggests that culturaland linguistic differenceswhich influenceonline interactionsremain underesearched. The idea of a speech community is relevant to the study of online communities throughinteractionsbetween individualsor groups with a variety of sociolinguistic histories,but with sharedcommunicativecompetenceand repertoires. Internet-based speech communitiesare constructedaroundsocioculturallyconstitutedinteractions be definedby static that,like offlinespeechcommunities,"cannot physical location"(Morgan2001). Interactingmembersof online groups constitute a speech communityas they presumablyshareto some extent communicative practices,beliefs, and norms,since communicationwould be hinderedotherwise. However,much of the researchinto computermediatedcommunicationhas been based exclusively upon the use of varieties of English in text-basedinteractions, of this global, multimediaphenomenon.A notableexlimiting our understanding ception is Keating's (2000) researchinto emergent practices in American Sign video chat relays. Languageresultingfrom Intermet-based Analyzed through the lens of contemporaryapproachesin ethnographiesof communication,researchin multilingual,multisited Internetexperiences would contributeto debates in the literaturewhich seeks to position studies of mediated communicationand technology in local social and communicativepractices (Goodwin 1994; Goodwin 1990; Heath & Luff 2000; Hollan et al. 2000; Keating 2000; Spitulnik 1996, 1998, 2000). Such researchmight help our understanding of the ways in which speakersincorporatenew technologies of communication from existing communicativerepertoires,and these technologies influence new and emerging cultural practices. In this sort of investigation,researchersmust ask: Where do community members situate computers and other communication and informationtechnologies in their daily lives? How are the tools of new media changing the contexts and frames of communicativepractices?Are new forms of communicativecompetencedeveloping as a consequence of new media tools in offline speech communities?How does technology enhance or displace discourses and practicesof tradition?How might new technologies alternoviceof online interactionsaffect offline expertrelations?How do linguistic structures practice? The emerging frameworkof distributedcognition (Cole et al. 1997, Hollan et al. 2000, Hutchins1995, Hutchins& Klausen 1996) has the potentialto address these phenomena,moving beyond the initial conceptions of an ungroundedcyinteractionstowardunderstandberspace and two-dimensionalhuman-computer ing "the emerging dynamic of interactionin a world that contains materialand social organization" (Hollanet al. 2000). This framework providesa link between

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WILSON I PETERSON interaction,the Intemet, previously existing media, and social human-computer it to addressimportant and allows issues of the social role anthropologists spaces, of technology, the relationshipbetween language and technology, and questions of access to technologies in traditionally marginalizedcommunities.

Power,Ideology,and Access
withinanthropology, some researchers have attempted to relateonline Particularly experienceswithin largercontexts of power and broadersocial hierarchies.They and others have explored the Internet'spotential to advance efforts for social justice (Burkhalter1999, Downing 1989, Downing et al. 2000, Loader 1998). Withinnearlyall of the foregoingworks,the issue of class has played a significant part, as it does in the research of English-Lueck(1998), Kirshenblatt-Gimblett et al. (1997), andLoader(1998). Hakken& Andrews(1993) for (1996), Merrifield in work example studiedtile effects of computingtechnology on class structures environmentsin England. Ethnographers have also explored the social impacts of technology practicesin a varietyof innovativeways, including Kelty's (2000) researchon the impactof (non)regulation of softwaredevelopmentand computer use in healthcareorganizations. Our focus in this review has excluded considerationof the digital divide and otherkindsof inequalityof access to onlinecommunication. Of course,the makeup of online communitiesrests directly upon the constitutionof Internetusers, i.e., those who have access. We would note, however,that access includes a greatdeal more thanthe rightof entryto the places where Internet-based equipmentis kept. It also involves some knowledge of technology itself, as well as a facility and experiencelevel, not just in a technicalsense but in the sense of the social context of Internet-based media and the implicationsof the technology on a wider scale. Others have argued well that equal access is not achieved simply by installing computersand fast Intemet connections in schools and homes (Burbules 1998, Burbules& Callister2000, Wilson 2000). The materialapproachwill be insufficient "if prospectiveusers do not also have an opportunity to develop the skills and attitudesnecessary to take advantageof those resources"(Burbules& Callister 2000, p. 20). For example, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1996) arguedthat users who don't subscribeto the dominantideologies of language and technology may not be able to have equal access to Internetresources. In addressingthe complex issue of access, we must also touchon ideology: parthese new media, the ways in which ticularlythe language contexts surrounding informationand communicationtechnologies are used, and the ways in which individuals' ideologies interactwith the ideologies inscribedin technology, and how they combine to create new ways of viewing and talking about the world. In more marginalizedcommunities, discourses of technological empowerment have been shown to influence,but not to determine,local perceptionsof technology's potentialandstrategiesfor its use (Uimonen2001). Sherry's(2002) research on computers in Navajo work environmentsrevealed a dialectical, sometimes

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conflicting, relationshipbetween ideologies of technology and the discourses of Navajo tradition.Understandinglocal discourse and ideologies of media technology is crucial since speakersincorporatenew technologies of communication from existing communicativerepertoires,which influencenew and emergingcultural practices (Hutchins 1995, Keating 2000). These metadiscursivepractices have broaderimplicationsfor participation in new public spheres(Briggs Bauman the "social 1999, Spitulnik 2001), organizationof technology" (Keating 2000), and the consequences of shifting spaces for language use and language contact (Crystal2001). The relationshipof ideology to social and linguistic practiceis an increasinglyimportantavenue for futureresearch.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS FORINTERNET RESEARCH

Internetphenomena are leading us to ask new questions, and new media researchrequiresadapting methodsto new technologicalenvironments ethnographic (Hammannd, Jacobson 1999, Jones 1999, Markham 1998, Paccagnella 1997, Ruhleder2000). Within this environmentof change, however, we are also in a moment in which the ethical responsibilitiesof the researcherare far from clear. As Turkle(1995, p. 324) notes, "virtualrealityposes a new methodologicalchalwhat to make of online interviews and indeed, whether lenge for the researcher: and how to use them." As Jacobson discusses, when carryingout researchonline the researchermust be aware of "the identifiabilityof human subjects, the of privacy,difficultiesassociatedwith obtaininginformedconconceptualization sent, and the applicabilityof copyright laws" (Jacobson 1999, p. 139; see also Morton 2001, Thomas 1996). As of this writing the American Anthropological Association offers no ethical protocolsor standards specific to online interactions in its Code of Ethics (AAA 1998). For some researchers,the statementsmade in publicly accessible discussion boards or other communicationspaces are in the public domain and may thus be freely used by researchers.For others, this is a form of electronic eavesdroppingthat violates the speaker'sexpectation of privacy.Our feeling, in keeping with the view that anthropologyonline is subresearch,is that although stantiallythe same as any other sort of anthropological the AAA Code of Ethics does not addresselectronic communicationdirectly,its ethical principles--of showing respect for people understudy,of protectingtheir dignity and best interests,of protectinganonymityor giving propercredit, and of obtaininginformedconsent-apply online as well as in face-to-face contexts.

CONCLUSION
Although we have concluded that online phenomenashareimportantsimilarities with othertypes of humanexperienceand are amenableto relativelyconventional anthropological concepts and assumptions,the Internetis still in a period of innoand rapidchange. The ability for groups and individuals vation, experimentation,

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WILSON. PETERSON to interactat great distances raises interestingquestions for those investigating the constructionof identity, social interactions,and collective action--political or otherwise. As noted above, the Web has created a new arenafor group and individualself-representation, for changingthe powerdynamicsof representation marginalized traditionally groupssuch as Native Americanswithin the discourses of popular It is also an exciting moment for those studying changes in culture,. communicativepractice,as people invent new forms of communicationor adapt old ones to new technologies. The revolutionaryclaims made for the Internetand the communicationsmedia it supportshave faded in recent years. The realizationhas grown that though online communicationmay happen faster, over larger distances, and may bring of some existing power relationships,the rapidand funabout the reformulation damental transformations of society that some foresaw have not come to pass. Inter-networked computersare culturalproductsthatexist in the social and political worlds within which they were developed, and they are not exempt from the rules and normsof those worlds. On the otherhand,the social uses of the Internet, in thefew yearsof its existence, have been astonishingand almost completely unanticipated by those who began networkingcomputersin the 1960s (Berners-Lee& Fischetti 1999). These new communicativepractices and communities very properly demand the attention not to invent completely new analyticalapproachesto virtual of anthropologists, but to spaces, bring to bear our existing expertiseon humancommunicationand culture.

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