[Air-l] breaking the rules

[Ulla Bunz]

I've been collecting some literature on online norms, especially in group interaction. I want to look specifically at a group's reaction to such violation. I have a lot of the "flaming" literature, especially that which comes out of communication research. I also have a few "interactional norms" pieces (i.e., Postmes 2000) that are related to impression making. I'm aware of a couple of famous cases (such as the guy deleting all his email in the WELL, or the LambdaMoo "rape" case). 

I'm looking for additional work that examines specifically how a group/community reacts to norm violation and what happens to the people who violate the norms in the long term. 

I'm sure there must be a lot of research out there on this topic, especially in the "community" research field, and hopefully in disciplines other than communication. I'd also love to hear about non-US incidents (I read German and French), and though the research I'm aware of is all about email, the web, and usenet, I'd love to hear about other interactional media in which norm violation took place. 

To many of you this might seem like an obvious question and you're pulling your hair, thinking, "how come she doesn't know about this stuff," but I would really appreciate some help to add to my current literature review.

Any pointers as to how a group/community reacts to norm violation and what happens to the people who violate the norms would be much appreciated.

Please send your advice Off List to me personally at bunz at scils.rutgers.edu, and I will make sure I compile a summary to be posted here (rather than clogging up everyone's mailbox with lots of messages).

Thanks so much in advance!
Ulla

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Ulla Bunz
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Rutgers University
4 Huntington Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
bunz at scils.rutgers.edu
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