Expanding the Public Sphere through Computer ... - ResearchGate

CHAPTER 3. TECHNOLOGY & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 51
3.3 Usenet: An Arena Of Computer Mediated Discussion
One of the most extensive collections of ongoing computer mediated discussions
is Usenet (Nickerson 1992, Hauben 1995). 3 Usenet links tens of thousands of
computers and millions of users through a series of discussions called newsgroups.
As of January, 1995, the best available measures estimated the total number of
Usenet readers to be more than 11 million people worldwide (Reid 1994a). The
average amount of traffic carried per day on Usenet totaled 127,446 messages, or
586.4 megabytes.
A brief explanation of what a newsgroup is may be helpful to some readers. 4 This
is best done by analogy to familiar media. One of the many features we use to
differentiate some media messages from others is addressability. Addressability,
as a feature of a specific message, concerns the specificity of the intended recipient.
Some traditional media require specific addresses to be delivered: telephone
calls are routed to specific telephone lines; personal letters are routed to specific
mailboxes. Other traditional media do not require specific addresses: broadcast
television and radio programs are accessible by tuning into a specific frequency.
finally, some media are produced without a specific addressee in mind (books,
newspapers, junk mail), but require specific addresses for delivery (i.e. many
copies of identical messages are delivered to identifiable recipients). Computer
mediated communication (see Section 3.2 on page 47) has the same types of messages.
Fully addressed messages are called electronic mail. Individuals receive
mail from others that is specifically addressed to them, or by virtue of being on a
mailing list to which they have subscribed. Subscribing to a mailing list is analogous
to subscribing to a magazine, while a newsgroup is analogous to broadcast
television.
Unlike electronic mail, which requires a user to open her mailbox to retrieve,
newsgroups require users to “turn on the set” and “tune into a specific channel.”
The set is typically a computer system (as opposed to a personal computer) shared
by many users. Though individuals might use a personal computer to connect
to the system, they are unlikely to directly access newsgroups on these devices.
3 Usenet is a shorthand reference to “Unix User Network,” and now generally refers to the
collection of newsgroups distributed on a variety of computer networks (Hardy 1993).
4 For a more detailed description, see Krol (1992).