11: "Core Group," "Regular," and "Lurker" Participation by Student Residents on E-mail List

Discussion

The e-mail list easily divided into three levels of participation, with a clear gender pattern (for more about the gender pattern, see 13: Core Group Participation by Gender):

• A core group of 12 heavy contributors posted over 50% of the total messages (3 - 8 messages per month on average); 10 of these 12 core group members were male. The single most active contributor to the e-mail list was a woman, Hillary. She posted 74 messages or nearly 7% of the total. The next most active contributor, Ronald, posted 55 messages or 5.2% of the total.
  
• 22 "regular contributors" (1 - 3 messages per month) posted an additional 38% of the total messages.
  
• 51 "lurkers" (0 - 1 messages per month) posted the remaining 12.5% of the total messages.

Initially we might say that the existence of the male-dominated core group corroborates conclusions such as Korenman and Wyatt's (1996) that "the pattern of a small core of regular participants corresponds closely to the behavior of participants in face-to-face interaction." This initial conclusion would not be optimistic about the potential for CMC to promote democratic, egalitarian discourse.

Precisely because Rinconada House was a face-to-face community as well as an electronic community, however -- and because we can compare residents' perceptions from the survey with their actual behavior -- we have a special opportunity here to extend that comparison between virtual and f2f interaction and reach some different conclusions about the democratic potential of CMC in a small community (see table above for details):

• When the regular contributors are considered together with the core group, we have 34 people -- fully 40% of the 85 residents studied -- participating regularly on the e-mail list.That's a far higher rate of regular participation than on most Internet forums.
  
• The lurkers as a group found the e-mail list to be moderately useful, and their opinion about CMC did not significantly differ from the other groups' (1.97 vs. 2.02 for regular contributors, only slightly lower than the core group's average of 2.29).
  
• We can recall in this context (from the survey) that, despite the large number of lurkers, the residents as a whole said they were very active as readers of the dorm e-mail list (2.53), while admitting they were much less active as writers to the list (1.19).
  
• These facts lead to the conclusion that the benefits of electronic discussion were widespread. Even low-participating or non-participating lurkers found the list useful and read it regularly, enhancing its community-building effects. On this basis, I can disagree with researchers such as Kollock and Smith (1996) who speak of "free-riders" (i.e. lurkers) pejoratively. Surely many of us who have "participated" largely or even entirely as lurkers in other electronic forums have still felt we benefitted from the experience, in terms of being part of a community as well as gaining knowledge; more so the members of a residential community who are regularly reading thoughtful messages (critical dialogue constituted 30% of the postings; see 05b) from their dormmates.

How did participation on the e-mail list compare to participation in the f2f dorm community? From the F2f Activity Quotient column (see the Discussion in section 10 for how this measure was derived) in the table above, we can observe that members of the core group generally rated themselves as active members of the dorm (5, 5.5, 6). However, there are significant exceptions: Gregory (who didn't fill out a survey), Zachary (3), and Duncan (3). Here are three of the heaviest e-mail participators who did not participate heavily in the f2f community.

Anecdotal evidence bolsters the conclusion that the electronic core group and f2f core group of the dorm, while overlapping, were not identical. Zachary, for example, began the year fairly shy and withdrawn, having even made a special request through the admissions office for a single room (which was granted). Zachary's active, thoughtful participation on the e-mail list helped him gain both respect from his peers and confidence in his own social abilities. Later in the year, Zachary became noticeably more active in f2f dorm activities including discussions, programs, and social events. Those of us who have used CMC tools in the classroom have observed many similar cases of shy students finding their voice initially through electronic discussions.

It seems clear that CMC -- while evidently not detracting from f2f participation (because of the large overlap between electronic and f2f core groups) -- can be extremely valuable for certain individuals (such as Gregory, Zachary, and Duncan), offering them an additional way to participate in a residential community and in turn offering that community the benefit of their participation.