[Air-l] private/public

[Barry Wellman]

I've read with interest your comments on whether it is ok for a class to
blog publicly. I was surprised at such unanimity in favor of public
blogging. Maybe it is because I am Canadian (of New York extraction,
albeit) who only watched Jennicam once and will never, ever Twitter.

I've been thinking about what folks have been saying, and I still think
that course blogs should be private.

I distill the arguments for public blogs to saying that students should be
getting used to writing in public. Agreed. Indeed, I am now writing a book
on how social scientists should write.

But a classroom (and e-extensions of it) are different. Indeed, I start
off each year by saying that this classroom is safe space and within broad
limits (abuse, libel, etc.), people should be free to express any ideas --
as long as they keep it within the class. (I don't allow recording either,
except for those with disabilities.) With a password protected blog,
students talk to each other, to the TA, and to me. That's enough. I don't
want anyone worried about being humiliated, or in any other feeling
constrained in their discussion. Nor do I want those not in the class
barging into the discussion -- for one thing, they have not been privy to
all the discussions that went on beforehand nor do they know the
personalities involved.

But perhaps I am an old fuddy-duddy. Let me give you another
private/public example that aroused debate among my students yesterday. I
was interviewed by the Toronto Star earlier this week on a story that
dealt with whether people would rather say unpleasant things online rather
than F2F. (I have no data on this, btw.) Also interviewed was a young
woman who said (and I paraphrase), "Well I ditched him by email, but no
matter, as we had only slept together once."

There was the obvious debate about what is the etiquette was for ditching
someone who had been slept with "only once": 5 said a F2F goodbye was
called for; 1 said email was ok these days because it was such a common
experience.

But what shocked everyone one of us is that the woman interviewed used her
own name. We wonder if anyone has contacted her; two radio stations have
already contacted me about the story -- and my part of the interview was
much less sensationalistic than her's. (I introduced the reporter to the
concept of "flaming").

 Barry Wellman
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  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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