[Air-l] howard dean, social movements and clay shirky

[Nancy Baym]

>  > I find it implausible that people who are using the
>>  internet to retreat from offline life would choose a
>>  political action online community in which to do so.
>
>That's never been asserted. What's been said is that the
>dependence on online technologies can lull some people into
>a false sense of security.


To the contrary, that is more or less Shirky asserts:

"We know well from past attempts to use social software to organize
groups for political change that it is hard, very hard, because
participation in online communities often provides a sense of
satisfaction that actually dampens a willingness to interact with the
real world."

My question (and I think Ren's) was not whether this is an accurate 
explanation of what's going on with Dean's campaign, but whether 
there is any evidence to support this claim in general -- what is the 
evidence from the use of social software to organize groups for 
political change that participation in online communities results in 
less willingness to interact in "the real world"?


-- 
Nancy Baym	http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym
Communication Studies, University of Kansas
Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66045-7574, USA
Association of Internet Researchers: http://aoir.org