[Air-l] Re: Lurking

[Mary L. Gray]

> Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 17:43:33 -0500
> From: "Karim R. Lakhani" <lakhani at MIT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Lurking
> i was not implying that everyone should participate in every
> conversation but it would seem that people should participate in a
> discussion that is appropriate. like you did! i am against full time
> free-riding. it would be interesting for the list owner of this list to
> calculate the free rider component of this list.  i.e. how many have
> signed on and how many have participated even once, vs pure
> non-participants.
> thus your appearance is welcome!

i wanted to throw out for consideration that lurking IS active
participation. falling back on discussions of audiences as active
participants, i would like to suggest that lurkers are
readers/listeners/viewers and often the imagined recipients of our posts to
newsgroups, lists, etc. unless, we're addressing a specific author (which
might be sent as personal email), we mean our messages to reach to those
"just listening" as much as we hope to use our words to bring up
conversation, true?

why would we see listening as "free riding"? i tend to talk too much when
i'm in a group situation, so i've been practicing something the activists
around me call "stepping down" so that others can "step up" to speak more
often. i think if someone didn't know me, they might think i'm a lurker
rather than one of those 15% who are always getting a word in edgewise. so,
i wonder what it is about lurking that we see as non-participatory when
we're in settings where we can't see how one might be participating in other
ways (telling people off-list about the conversation, bringing the
discussion up in other lists, writing private emails to others on the list)?
is there even such a thing as a "pure non-participant"?

best,
mary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mary L. Gray <mlgray at ucsd.edu>
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
vox:    502/451.5003
mail:   PO Box 4004, Louisville, KY 40204
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~mgray
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~