[Air-l] groups, intentions and conventions

[Rosanna Tarsiero]

William,

You wrote:
"The main purpose of any group with set organizing principles or statutes
may not be to discuss those principles but inevitably it seems to me they'll
sometimes do so. this obviously happens at certain given times (e.g., when
they're dividing into subgroups, working groups, merging, breaking up...)."

It is one of the reasons for Tuckman's is applied to groups, online and
offline, despite the limitations of the original studies. That is, many
persons can see the "Norming" phase (and others) happening on spontaneously
created groups, even online.


"It seems to me that there is always a kind of meta-narrative in any group.
Is that tribal? Does tribal mean level of technological sophistication?"

There's a beautiful book from Adams written in 1988 "The academics tribes"
which explains how it happens in academia. Now this might be appropriate to
extend to online behaviours of academics or not (it all depends on how much
an academic feels invested into keeping the "honor of the tribe" high online
as well), however it makes one think.

Rosanna