Dewey and the dialogical process

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DEWEY AND THE DIALOGICAL PROCESS: SPEAKING, LISTENING, AND TODAY'S MEDIA

by Karen G. Evans

Dewey and the Dialogical Process: Speaking, Listening, and Today's Media. Contributors: Karen

G. Evans - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Public Administration. Publication

Year: 2001

INTRODUCTION

Authentic communication is a necessary component of all democratic practices, those that

pertain to society in general and those inherent in organizations. For communication to be

authentic, there must be reciprocity, with equal emphasis on and respect for both aspects of

communication--speech and listening. Communicative activities involve both learned skills and

feelings of efficacy nurtured from childhood through adulthood. Participating in a

communicative act, either as a listener or as a speaker, involves a rough sense of equality

among participants, respect for all participants and for the process of dialogue itself, and

confidence that, while consensus is unlikely where there are strong differences in opinion and

values, an open process of dialogue is in itself a key to the maintenance of democracy.

Problems of citizen apathy and loss of efficacy are identified most closely with today's decline

of authentic dialogue in the United States. However closely identified these problems appear

to be with our current social and political situation, they are by no means new problems. The

decline in democratic practices of citizenship was one of many problems John Dewey studied

in the early part of this century. This paper will discuss Dewey's understanding of the

importance of communication to democracy as a way of living together, his analysis of barriers

to effective communication, and his recommendations for collective problem-resolution and

decision-making. It will argue that authentic communication and deliberation cannot be

separated from the differences of opinion and viewpoint that call it into being. The means of communication we employ today differ from those of Dewey's time and those means affect

the quality of community we experience. The paper will present a case study of the Blacksburg

Electronic Village, an example of one of the best virtual communities in the United States, and

then evaluate Dewey's thinking and that of others about democratic community as compared

with such "virtual communities" on the Internet. The conclusion will examine the effect of

today's information technology on dialogue--both the enhancement such technology imparts

to our ability to communicate and participate, and its fragmenting effects.

COMMUNICATION AND DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY

During the span of his professional life, John Dewey produced so much written work, in the

form of books, speeches, reports, reviews, essays, and articles, that it requires 37 volumes of

edited text to contain it all.(1) The contents of these volumes touch on a wide variety of topics

ranging from the more mundane, such as educational philosophy, to the deeper and more

technical, such as epistemology and metaphysics. Much of Dewey's work was published in



media accessible to most readers--for example, he was an early and frequent contributor to

such popular journals as The New Republic. As a consequence, Dewey was recognized as

America's foremost public philosopher. However, that recognition did not insure that Dewey's

perspectives on democracy, education, and philosophy would continue to be central to

American political and philosophical thinking.

Dewey's particular slant on democracy--that it is first a social and only secondarily a political

phenomenon--explains the stress he placed on education and communication as tools for

community-building. While most agree that the school is one of the principal institutions for

the socialization of children, the kind of communication Dewey saw as essential to democracy

goes beyond that. It is not merely the transmission of facts from one generation to the next,

but the "glue that binds the social group together in spite of the differing interests of the

members."(2) Dewey thought that society exists not only "by transmission, by communication,

but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication ... Men live in a community

by virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which

they come to possess things in common."(3) The give-and-take of dialogue helps us to

attribute common meaning to things and events, and, ultimately, through the mediation of

that common meaning and its agreed-to significance, to be able to live in community.

There are two primary purposes that communication serves for the public: "it provides

information so that people can understand the shared social consequences of individual and

group actions ... [and] through discussion it allows for the formation of public opinion, which

can become the basis for democratic action."(4) In Dewey's day, and even more in our day,

there is plenty of information--reducing information overload was what Dewey thought should

be a principal purpose for the exercise of expertise. Experts, in his opinion, could contribute tocooperative inquiry and public discussion not through "framing and executing policies, but in

discovering and making known the facts, upon which the former depend."(5) However, we

seem to be engaging in less and less public discussion, the second of communication's

purposes, and consequently, take part in even "less public action."(6)

Where Dewey attributed this reduction in public discussion to the concentration of power and

influence in the corporation and felt that because of their absorption into corporate life,

American individuals had become disconnected from a feeling of efficacy in both the economic

and political spheres, Arendt would have assigned responsibility to the growth of masssociety.(7) Dewey's concerns centered on the growth of communication technologies--the

telephone, telegraph, railroads, and newspapers and magazines--of his time. Today the public

sphere is dominated by the mass media of radio and television.(8) While information is

disbursed widely and instantaneously, opportunities for conversation, dialogue, or debate are

curtailed. Traditional pluralist mechanisms for public opinion to impact government--interest

groups and political parties--seem to be controlled by a few large organizations. "Most people

have become passive listeners and viewers, not active discussants and participants."(9)



Another thread woven into Dewey's understanding of democracy is the notion that collective

problem-solving, or inquiry, is not only possible, but is a fundamental and essential activity of

citizens in a democratic state. As the child is socialized in the home and the school, so the adult

citizen continues. The habits of cooperation and respect that are foundational to democratic

practices must be formed early to continue to direct our activities in later life.

Fortunately, he thought, such habits can easily be inculcated, for the interests of the young

tend to develop in four compatible directions: "the interest in conversation or communication;

in inquiry, or finding out things; in making things, or construction; and in artistic

expression."(10) Dewey's educational philosophy drew on these characteristics of children. He

advised the education community to give up its tradition of teaching through memorization

and recitation, techniques that emphasized the imparting of a specific set of facts and fostered

competition among students, and to adopt techniques that built on children's natural

interests. He felt that education's purpose was to teach children how to think--how toapproach and solve problems together--not what to think. The first seeds of community should

be planted in elementary school classrooms where children could master arithmetic through a

cooperative building project or come to understand the culture of a foreign land through

listening to or playing folk tunes or weaving cloth."(11) All of these activities are mediated by

communication of the type that lays a foundation for authentic dialogue.

A classroom organized along these lines, Dewey felt, would encourage the development of

what he called "critical intelligence." Critical intelligence is that human faculty that, when

properly honed, aims "to overcome obstacles, resolve problems, and project realizablepossibilities in pressing predicaments."(12) Critical intelligence is not an aspect of the

individual, but rather an aspect of social intelligence--a resource for addressing and resolving

collective, not individual, problematic situations. The application of critical intelligence is only

possible through dialogue.

In a world that is inherently contingent, people often find themselves in problematic

situations. Even when we acknowledge that the world is contingent--more subject to chance

than to predetermined order--we humans seem to need some semblance of order and

continuity to function well, so we are drawn to resolving such situations. Dewey defined a

situation as an "episode [or field] of disequilibrium, instability, imbalance, disintegration,

disturbance, dysfunction, [or] breakdown ... in the ongoing activities of some given

organism/environment system."(13)

The appropriate means of dealing with situations, in Dewey's scheme of things, is to

collectively engage in a process of inquiry--"the controlled or directed transformation of an



indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and

relations as to convert the original situation into a unified whole."(14) The problematic

situation creates doubt and people engage in a process of inquiry as a means of reducing that

doubt and of restoring a sense of balance--to transform the uncertainty of the situation so that

tentative next steps can be taken.(15) In a determined world there would be no such thing as

true freedom or human agency; once we assume that the world is not determined, but rather

contingent, both freedom and responsibility take on new meaning. The application of critical

intelligence to social problems in collective inquiry "allows human actors to bring about

change" and, if we have the ability to change the course of events, we must anticipate and

accept responsibility for the consequences of our collective decisions.(16)

By engaging in inquiry, we can arrive at descriptions and statements that assign meaning to

the situation, based on our conversations and the agreements we reach as to the facts. In a

democratic society, inquiry should take advantage of the abilities and knowledge of all citizens.

Those with expert knowledge contribute to the inquiry, principally by sorting and filtering

information, but the decisions about what next steps to take result from the contributions of

all, not just the expert. In this way, Deweyan democracy can overcome the problems

associated with bureaucratic structure and the domination of technocrats--those experts who

exert control through that structure.(17)

Dewey saw communication as transaction, and based on the nature and extent of

consequences of each transaction, as a contributing factor to the delineation between what is

public and what is private. Where consequences are limited in effect to the two parties to the

communicative transaction, it is private; when indirect consequences follow, the transaction

"acquires a public capacity,"(18) or falls into the public sphere. Because humans anticipateconsequences to their actions, including their communication acts, they attempt to secure

favorable consequences and avoid those that damage either themselves or a broader segment

of society. "When indirect consequences are recognized and there is effort to regulate them,

something having the traits of a state comes into existence."(19) One aspect of the meaning

assigned to communicative transactions is this prospective analysis of consequences and

attempts to regulate them. Thus, not only is society created and maintained by

communication, but so also are political institutions created in anticipation of the broader

consequences of communication.

It would seem, then, that one measure of the degree to which political institutions are

commensurate with democratic practices is the extent that citizens actively participate in the

cooperative resolution of problematic situations that affect their lives. The efficacy of political

institutions can be measured by the degree to which authentic, reciprocal communications

inform



their activities. To actively participate, citizens must both speak and listen with respect for the

dissenting opinions of other citizens. The term "authentic" implies openness, honesty, and

trust as the basis upon which that respect is built. And, the term "reciprocal" indicates a rough

equality among citizens as participants and between the acts of speech and listening as

elements in communication.

ACTIVE LISTENING AND POLITICAL TRUST

As this century comes to a close, the information overload and communication problem

identified by Dewey decades ago has taken on increasing importance. Mass media of

communication--television, radio, newspapers, and magazines--have had the effect of

crowding out other kinds of communicative opportunities. We live in an era of instantaneous,

one-way, few-to-many communication. Instead of being participants in dialogue, we are

increasingly becoming audiences and markets. As audiences, we are severed from "reciprocal

production of social knowledge and engagement in decisionmaking."(20) As audience

members, we cannot easily transform ourselves into speakers; our role becomes passive.

Lacking reciprocity in so many of our communications, not only are our democratic political

institutions endangered, but the foundations of our way of life as well.(21)

The particular form of dialogue associated with democratic decision making is deliberation.

Building on an Aristotelian foundation, Bickford argues that we deliberate so that we can take

action in the face of uncertainty.(22) Deliberation in the context of politics is the natural home

of conflict--if we agree on the course of action without conflict, there is no need to deliberate.

"Deliberation ... is the exercise of practical reason ... the active use of perception [to

determine] what particulars are the `relevant features of a situation' and how seriously to

consider each in determining a course of action."(23)

Dewey characterizes deliberation as an exercise in judgment--"the dramatic rehearsal (in

imagination) of various competing possible lines of action."(24) This can be construed to

involve both the internal dialogue of the self with the self and the external dialogue of

conversation with others in the attempt to try out the consequences of present action on

future satisfaction of our aims and desires, without actually taking steps that are irrevocable.

And, while it would undoubtedly be interesting to somehow "know" what the future holds in

store for us, our deliberation can only assess the possible future consequences of present

action on the basis of our present state of being and tendencies that we acknowledge as facts.

The significance and meaning of our present actions are the proper subject of our

deliberation.(25)



To arrive at what is significant for us as a collectivity, we not only visualize the possible

consequences of our actions individually, but also must communicate these among ourselves

using language. Language translates the imagined and felt into a shared symbolic system

allowing us to deliberate, if we attend to, or actively listen to, each other. We need not only to

attend, but to be receptive to the symbolic content of the speech of others.(26) Bohm defines

attention as the "stretch[ing of] the mind toward something ... to come into contact with that

something."(27) Although we more often think of speech commanding attention, this view of

attention or active listening places priority on the listener seeking the symbolic content of

speech.

The distinctive form of attention, then, in active listening can be described as "welcoming,"

what postmodernists might identify as a hospitable orientation toward the other.(28) This

definition takes into account two aspects of attention that might otherwise be neglected---

caring or consideration for the object of attention (generally associated with friendship or

common interest) and a sense of "focused awareness, of being mindful or observant, of

something or someone."(29) While the first is more appropriately associated with the personal

or private communicative transaction, the second can be applied in broader, more politically-

oriented communication. In such political deliberations, speakers must give this kind of

attention to their audiences in order to persuasively argue for their point of view. Listeners, as

active participants, must also stay focused so that they can "understand and judge others'

contributions, reshape their own opinions, and determine their own responses. This kind of

listening is central to collective figuring out, to the communicative exercise of practical

reason."(30)

The problem highlighted in communication transacted through the modern mass media(television and radio, in particular) is the artificial separation of two elements that naturally

incline toward each other. Because they are interconnected, authentic and meaningful speech

and listening constitute an action whose description "must include the possibility of both

influencing and being influenced by each other."(31) By separating speech and listening, both

physically and temporally, the mass media reduce the interanimation that characterizes a

meaningful communication transaction. The process of practical reasoning and deliberation is

interrupted when the participants are divided in time and space.

The process that is authentic communication requires that parties to it engage each other'sideas in the space that lies between them--a space that is, as we have discovered, fraught with

uncertainty and risk. As Bickford puts it, they engage in the task of building a path between

them even as they travel that path. Such a "pathbuilding requires from us a joint effort of

persistence and of courage."(32) There are many risks in coming to a trusting relationship

without the preliminary steps of building friendship, but principal among them is the risk that

what we hear when we engage in dialogue may require that we reevaluate positions we have

taken--that we may have to change as a result of our communicating.(33)



When communication is seen as such a process--one that takes place between participants

who, although they disagree, respect each other as equals--one can see the injury our reliance

on mass media as a tool for democratic practice has produced. Our expectations of the media

include many functions--gathering facts about issues that may affect us, helping set the

political agenda, providing opportunities for discussion and debate among candidates for

office and policy advocates, holding public officials to account, providing incentives for citizen

involvement, among others.(34) To some extent, the media have successfully fulfilled our

expectations with regard to these functions. In other respects, however, their very success has

had the unintended consequence of making public communication stilted and artificial,

removing incentives for citizen involvement in discussion of issues that impact the quality of

their lives.

Public communication and deliberation have importance because, in our uncertain world, we

envision different futures and seek the ability to take action to bring these visions to fruitfulrealization. Because of our differences, because we disagree, we must discuss and deliberate,

not necessarily with the idea of reaching consensus, but with the intention of arriving at

sufficient agreement to enable action for our common good. By filtering discussion through

the media, by abandoning our civic responsibility to deliberate, we have created a climate

where the obligations of citizenship have too often been abdicated. And, as our daily lives

become more compartmentalized, we have come to rely upon even more distancing forms of

communication--replacing the neighborly communities praised by Tocqueville and advocated

by Dewey with virtual communities mediated by Internet connection.

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA: WIRED FOR THE FUTURE

The Internet and all that electronic connectivity connotes are here to stay. Technology, once

released, never returns quietly to its box. The Internet, familiar to those who entered the

computer age running, was introduced just a few years ago to the more general population.

The concept of "cyberspace" and the alphabet soup of virtual communities--MOOs, MUDs,

cybercafes, etc.--add a new level of confusion to the question of dialogue and community. For

the non-initiates among us, these concepts are dark, murky, and somewhat threatening.(35)

Many of us born before 1965 associate the term "community" with the neighborhood, the

front porch, the church, and the other familiar places where we live our lives with others. This

community is populated with folks we know or know of--people we can encounter and agree

or argue with face-to-face. Virtual communities occupy no familiar physical place and are often

populated with avatars and icons--masks through which users participate.



Were these the only applications through which people could use this new technological

medium for communication and dialogue, the possibility for expanding authentic interaction

to strengthen democracy would be limited. In fact, such a notion of virtual community "has a

private quality about it; it may be who we are as private individuals that constitutes our

membership in certain communities."(36) We choose to participate based on our interests,

professional status, or other considerations that arise from our construction of self; and, we

can drop out of a virtual community whenever we feel uncomfortable. So, while we can

"safely" practice communication skills in a virtual community, we are not required to resolve

disagreement or build pathways involving risk--we can drop out when the going gets tough. It

is more difficult, although not impossible, to drop out of our real communities.

The question, then, is how can we maximize the communicative positives embodied in this

medium, while minimizing the negatives? First, we need to recognize and "acknowledge that

the Net is a complement and not a substitute for other forms of ... communication."(37) If we

want to use virtual communities as places of reduced risk to practice and gain confidence in

our communicative abilities, we need to graft virtual communities onto actual neighborhoods

and towns--to connect the virtual with the real-and to use electronic media to augment

dialogical relationships and processes that actually have impact on real social problems and

inquiries. Virtual communities that work are not utopian--they grow and self-organize, if given

a space to do so, just as do real communities. The technology is secondary to the hosting of

the community by persons who display "qualities of engaged, tolerant openness."(38)

Such a dual community was developed in the small Southwest Virginia town of Blacksburg. An

experimental electronic village was crafted to provide the positive communicative functions

associated with the Internet to the citizens of the town. Planning the Blacksburg ElectronicVillage (BEV) began in 1991 with the formation of a partnership between the town of

Blacksburg, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), and Bell-

Atlantic.(39) The project was intended as a "seed bed" for the testing of computer network

applications in service to a community--from which a model for such community networks

could be drawn.

Because of the research roots of the project, an evaluation model was part of the original plan

for the Blacksburg Electronic Village. This model was set up to measure the progress of the

project across four dimensions: design, impacts, access, and critical mass.(40) The designcomponent evaluates the construction and operation of the network by examining "user

interface design, system architecture, physical connections, capacity, hardware, user support,

access modes, and feedback mechanisms."(41) Impacts refer to the consequences--economic,

psychological, educational, cultural--of the system's operation on multiple levels, from the

individual to the region.(42) Access is measured across four functions: "cost, physical distance

from access point, quality of service, and user knowledge and expectations."(43) Critical mass



is reached when system use is sufficient to make the network sustainable. The critical mass

benchmark for the BEV was set at 19 percent of the population actively using the system.(44)

The "electronic village" itself officially opened on October 25, 1993, and since has grown to

provide service to over 32,000 individual users, in both the university and the town, in acounty whose population is 70,000.(45) A recent user survey provides some demographic

information: the respondents' average age is 45 years; the average length of residence in

Blacksburg is 12 years; 38 percent have completed graduate school; 65 percent are members

of a church or local club; two-thirds use the local library; and the gender breakdown is 56

percent female, 44 percent male.(46) These statistics are somewhat skewed to reflect the

university's presence in the Village, however they confirm a wide use of the BEV by persons

who are neither faculty nor students of Virginia Tech.

Comparing these demographics with those compiled by recent marketing studies of the

Internet in general, we find that BEV users are older--45 as compared with 36 years of age.(47)

They are also better educated, although as many as 73 percent of all Internet users are college

graduates.(48) And, more women are BEVnet users--56 percent as opposed to just under 50

percent for the general population of Internet users.(49)

Simple increases in user numbers do not tell the whole story of BEV's success. One objective of

the project was to bring a largely rural area into connection with the wider world through

Internet use. It was believed that the establishment of an inexpensive, widely available

Internet provider like BEV would attract other, private providers--a belief validated by the fact

that since BEV began its operation in 1993, eight other local providers have come into the

service area.(50)

As the BEVnet has grown in user numbers, functions have been added to complement, not

replace, many of the town's civic fora. The goals of the BEV project reflect a concern about the

use of technology to supplement and support a living community and its civic infrastructure,

and about providing appropriate models for other communities interested in becoming

electronically connected. These are:

* Continue to foster the virtual community that has been created to complement and enhance

the physical community;

* Further refine the model for creating electronic communities in other towns;



* Investigate the factors that make community networks self-supporting and responsive to

user needs;

* Provide support and assistance to other communities that are trying to develop healthy

community networks.(51)

Initially conceived as an ongoing research project of Virginia Tech, the BEV has become a part

of everyday life in Blacksburg. Among its common daily activities are: schoolchildren at all

grade levels have Internet access and video conferencing capability to connect them with their

counterparts around the United States and in other countries; more than two-thirds of the

local businesses advertise and do business online through BEV; parents can stay in contact

with their children's teachers and school activities; citizens can share their opinions directly

with government officials about such things as taxes, new roads and school building projects;

and senior citizens are connected with each other through a Web page, a list serve, and

monthly meetings and socials online.(52) Services available online include information about

the arts, about organizations, about churches, and about sports. Users can access government

on the local, regional, state, and national level (via hot link) by visiting the government site.

They can shop, gossip, keep track of each other, advertise and check schedules for various

upcoming events, reserve a book at a library, or share a recipe.(53)

What is accomplished in the real community is augmented in the electronic village. Businesses,

schools, individuals, political actors, policy advocates, clubs and other groups stay in touch,

make announcements, gather information and teach classes, advertise and do business, and

deliberate policy choices in cyberspace as well as real space.(54) Although the success of the

Blacksburg Electronic Village is now well-established and its format is commonly used for all

these purposes, this virtual community is an exception rather than a rule. This use of

communication technology seems to demonstrate that it is possible to engage in authentic

communication through electronic media. However, the lesson to be learned from the

Blacksburg system is that real community can be bolstered through the use of electronic

connections, but may not necessarily be built by it.

Formal evaluation of BEV follows the tetrad model explicated above, and examines the issues

of access, design, impacts, and critical mass. Making the system accessible to all, regardless of

personal computer ownership, was a critical early goal. This led the system designers to enlist

the local public library and local school system as general access points. The library sought and

received grants to finance an internal computer network with terminals dedicated to Internet

traffic and the ability to maintain email accounts for those who don't have their own

computers. This is a free public service. The BEV designers recognized the need to provide high

speed connections and broad bandwidths to locations with a large number of users, and,

consequently, planned that connections to the libraries, schools, local government, the



University, apartment complexes, and large businesses would be based on local area networks

(LANs) and Ethernet technology.(55)

Evaluation research on design issues focuses on three broad areas: maintaining a running

history of the project, evaluating interface design, and working with local schools to integrateInternet material with curriculum.(56) The BEV history project is concerned with identifying

issues related to community networking; developing a "community-oriented digital library

tested for the development of automatic, self-sustaining, usable, intelligent hypermedia

services;" maintaining a digital history and ethnography of the BEV; and elaborating a model

for successful community networking that can be applied in other communities.(57) Early

focus groups identified problems with software, recommending making it easier for neophytes

to install and available for a variety of platforms, and stressed the need for intensive user

support in the early stages for new users.(58) Further design-related research explored using

BEV as a part of "information dissemination, counseling and mentoring, research collaboration,

and distance learning" applications.(59) In collaboration with the Montgomery County Public

Schools, the BEV is planning to develop "virtual classrooms" that "integrate the resources of

the entire community (libraries, homes, businesses, government) and global networks into the

educational experience."(60)

Early research on the impacts of the BEV shows that the overlay of the electronic village on the

town has affected the way people use other media--telephone, television, and newspapers.

Surveys and focus groups are providing feedback to continue and expand this research.(61)

With nearly 46 percent of the local population actively using the BEV, researchers have

concluded that critical mass has been achieved, and that the system is, therefore,

sustainable.(62)

The success factors attributed to the BEV by its designers include many factors that

demonstrate the importance of connecting the virtual community to a real community. Both

the dialogue mediated by technology and the dialogue in the community about technology are

critical. According to Andrew Cohill, director of the BEV for Virginia Tech, all of the problems

encountered in the development of the BEV were "education" problems, not technology

problems--that is, they could only be resolved through communication, through active, hands-

on training and experience.(63) The community of learners--government, citizens, educators,

and business-people--and the promoters of the project worked through problems face-to-facein computer labs, not in demonstrations.

Another key to success is low cost direct connections. While private providers continue to

connect users to the Internet through a modem pool, the BEV has sought to spread direct

connection, wherever financially feasible.(64) The involvement of public libraries permits

access to many who either don't have computers or can't afford individual connections. The



library's LAN also provided an additional training facility for community users--a community

space where the technology people and the community people could meet and learn from one

another.

Early feedback from the community convinced BEV developers that content, not technologicalgimmicks, drives use in a community network.(65) What is critical is having sufficient breadth

and depth of content--a range of ways that the Internet can support activities or things

important to users. This means that the network supports users in their "communicating with

others in some way that was not possible before or at least was much more difficult."(66) In

the case of town government, for example, this means that as the BEV grew, it became

possible for citizens to get information, to make electronic requests for services, to complete

registrations and applications and make payments, and to directly communicate with the town

on many levels through email.(67) All of these opportunities built on already-existing needs

and activities, but enhanced and augmented the relationship between citizens and local

government.

Perhaps most germane to this discussion of dialogue, the Internet as a communication

medium is different from:

every previous mass medium because it is a fully interactive, two-way

communications medium rather than a one-way broadcast medium ... you choose

what you want to read and what you want to discover, rather than having an

intermediary like a newspaper editor, a TV broadcaster, or a radio

announcer decide for you. That is a fundamental shift in power back to

individuals and away from large organizations.(68)

What the BEV does is harness that shift in power, make it available to all individuals in

a community, and keep a place within the community open for its members to make use of the

power they acquire through this medium to keep their community strong and vibrant. Serious

discussions and critiques related to the impact of virtual communities and the growth of

cyberspace are not confined to traditional academic setting--much debate about the dangers

and opportunities this increased connectivity provides takes place within the Internet

community itself. One example is a three-part online conversation about the problems and



possibilities of "Public Life in Electropolis" that appears in the online magazine Feed.(69) One

criticism, expressed by Mark Slouka, is that virtual communities--the MUDs and MOOs and

cybercafes--by virtue of their limiting relationship to electronic connection and text, "den[y]

implicitly, the wholeness of human existence, the unity of the body and the spirit."(70) William

Mitchell argues that it is not a question of choosing whether to be a part of real communities

or a part of virtual communities, but rather that there is need for both--the "bodily presence

and telepresence now play differing and potentially complementary roles in sustaining the

connections that matter to us."(71)

Do virtual communities, ones that are constructed around shared interests and lifestyles,

resemble suburban enclaves, gated communities, and gentrification projects? Are they

exclusive or inclusive? Slouka fears that our entry into virtual reality is just another way the

"the marketplace stands to gain something from first isolating us from one another, then

selling us simulated versions of the things we used to have available to us, for free ... [that our

lives] are reduced to a series of internal spaces (the home, the car, the office, etc.), [and] we

are reduced to peering through screens of one sort or another at the world we used to

know."(72) Mitchell argues that cyberspace needs to be considered as another aspect of urban

design, and that just as physical space needs diversity so does virtual space--that one

dimensional responses and constructions will not serve a population that wants both Internet

connection and the neighborhood.(73) Mitchell is arguing for a continuity between the

physical and virtual, a balance like that achieved in the BEV--one that "extend[s] and

enrich[es], rather than ... replace[s] [the] physically-based community."(74)

What the Blacksburg Electronic Village demonstrates is the possibility for ordinary citizens to

use technology as a tool to enhance their lives together and to expand their horizons beyondthe limits of a small town in a rural region. The sense of connection BEV fosters between

people, especially those for whom physical mobility is a problem, helps to reduce the isolation

and provinciality often found in such small towns. BEV strengthens the local economy and

business community, which leads to a better quality of life for all. And, it strengthens the

relationship between citizens and government, fostering democratic processes. The

involvement of the whole community in the development of the BEV and the continuing input

of the community in BEV's growth and direction are indicators that would surely have met with

Dewey's approval. So long as balance is maintained between what technology allows us to do

and what community encourages us to be, the BEV can be considered a positive contributing

factor in authentic dialogue in its community.

CONNECTED, BUT ISOLATED? ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNITY

Alexis de Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, shared with us his observations of

nineteenth-century American life. Although he praised the democratic tendencies he saw, he



expressed concern for the future of democracy as the nation inevitably grew, in part because

he saw that economic and demographic growth would inhibit the growth of associational life.

He argues that in the United States, associations are established to promote a wide variety of

common ends, political and otherwise. Exercise of the right of association permitted persons

to meet, to come to know one another, to discuss, to exchange opinions, and to delegate

political authority.(75) He further points out that individuals in a democracy are close to

powerless when "they do not learn voluntarily to help one another."(76) Independence would

be placed in jeopardy without political associations and civilization itself endangered without

widespread and vital civic associations.(77)

The kind of democracy Tocqueville reported in the early years of the United States was the

same kind of democracy Dewey advocated a century later--a bottom-up, self-organized set of

social relationships that could engender and give vitality to a political system of representative

government. To counter the effect of growth and expansion, Dewey saw the local

neighborhood as the basis for a "community of communities," capturing the best qualities of

face-to-face communication and inquiry at the local level with governance at the national

level. For Dewey, mere association and collective action are not sufficient for the creation of a

community, rather true community is a moral enterprise, one "that is emotionally,

intellectually, consciously sustained."(78) To meet this criterion requires a social organization

that nurtures and empowers individuals to develop to the fullest extent their capabilities, a

supportive and honest democratic relationship among these individuals, and the context of

common goods sustained by authentic communication.(79) The communication, in fact, comes

first--Dewey felt that there are "no individuals before there is communication, for

communication is a technological artifact that is a necessary condition of awareness of oneself

as an individual."(80) Just as Arendt attributes the creation of the human self to being seen

and acknowledged by others through acting and speaking in public, Dewey ascribes to the actof communication our power to become the individuals we are capable of being.(81)

The form communication takes has a profound effect on the way community develops as a

moral enterprise. It is, after all, the medium that establishes the connection between the

speaker and the listener.(82) The medium constitutes the field of action upon which our

communicative acts are played, and the process of dialogue can be seen as an effort to keep

"the field of action open, to act in a way so that future action is possible, so the field of

freedom is maintained or expanded."(83) The quality and the constraints inherent in the

medium must necessarily influence the kind of community it serves and the effectiveness of

the community's capacity to deliberate.

While it is unlikely that our civic infrastructure has become as thin as Robert Putnam has

assumed in his "Bowling Alone" articles,(84) it is hard to find in today's America the richness of

associational life that Tocqueville described in the 1830s. Our technology and industry have

brought us a rich, but busy, society where citizens, as audiences and customers, rely a great



deal on media that provide only a secondary sense of connection to each other. We are not

the joiners that our parents and grandparents were. We find most of our sense of belonging in

the areas of family and work, however, we often postpone family formation and develop

career-enhancing networks rather than close, collegial relationships. We read newspapers and

watch CNN to gain our understanding of the national political agenda and world events. We

are entertained through television and motion pictures, rather than entertaining ourselves in

social gatherings and shared activities. And, perhaps most isolating of all, we spend a great

deal of our communication energy in "talking" electronically over the Internet instead of with

our neighbors face-to-face.

The Internet has, without a doubt, provided many positive advantages in the areas of

communication and participation. The case of the BEV demonstrates these advantages. Use of

electronic mail has enhanced our ability to stay in instant touch with colleagues and friends.

Discussion groups built around common interests allow us space for expression of opinion. The

World Wide Web offers us a wealth of information--much more than we can process and use.

Using the two criteria for authenticity--equality and reciprocity--to evaluate this medium, it is

possible to build a case for the former. People who might be denied equal opportunity to

participate in face-to-face dialogue due to gender, race, age or class would be able to defeat

those barriers on the Internet.(85)

There is also a greater, although by no means perfect, degree of reciprocity in electronic

communication than is available in the other modern media. When the virtual community is

designed to augment a real community, this sense of reciprocity is enhanced further. The

BEV's virtual classroom concept, for example, allows students to expand their understanding of

other cultures and other people by connecting them to children in other regions of the UnitedStates and other nations in the global community. These students emerge with broader

experiences upon which to make adult decisions and commitments and with a wider network

of friends and acquaintances who have helped to shape them as individuals.

Unlike television and radio, the Internet has the potential to foster many-to-many

communication, in fact, there exist today many spirited virtual communities.(86) These

communities offer members the chance to play an active role, albeit in a virtual world. It has

been argued that people who participate in such virtual communities rehearse skills that later

lead to more active participation in deliberation in the "real" world. Certainly, if one gains avoice and a sense of self-esteem and confidence in on-line discussions, it seems likelier that

this practice could encourage one to take the risk involved in wider civic involvement.(87)

Dewey warned against the centralizing and compartmentalizing effect of corporate life on

American individuals--leaving them lost both economically and politically.(88) The Internet

introduces decentralizing forces-it fosters "power shifting away from the center toward



individuals and small organizations, more fluidity and continuous change, [and] increasingly

irrelevant national borders."(89) Because so much of the content of the Internet is self-

organized and largely unregulated, virtual communities have to establish their own ground

rules and policies.(90) Members engage in active dialogue around issues that affect the quality

of their lives in virtual space, much as Dewey hoped people would cooperate in inquiry and

decision making in real neighborhoods.

A "cyberspace community is by no means irrelevant to democracy and citizenship."(91) But,

neither can it be healthy to invest all of one's communicative energy in a surrogate, one that

offers "a life-denying simulacrum of real passion and true commitment to one another" in

place of dialogue with real neighbors about real issues.(92) What can be healthy is to build an

Internet community that corresponds to a real community, where electronic connection

reinforces the activities and concerns of citizens who know and interact with each other on

Main Street--the kind of virtual community the BEV is and continues to be.

In some ways, virtual communities seem to offer an antidote to the toxic condition of

American dialogue discussed above. In a modern America, deprived of convivial public spaces

that are so common in Europe, couldn't virtual communities make up for what some have

identified as "suburbanized, urban-decayed, paved, and malled environments?"(93) Rheingold

attributes our attraction to virtual communities to both our hunger for community itself and to

our fascination with new ways of communicating.(94) However, such a "solution" to the

thinness of American dialogue is not without its downside.

One obvious area of concern is that while the Internet "connects" people, it does not let them

truly know one another. If one spends hours each day in conversation across the Internet with

people he or she will never meet in person, how many opportunities for real contact and

relationship will be lost? There is a danger for some cyberspace habitues that what is real and

what is "virtual" may become confused. One kind of isolation is certainly embodied in a person

sitting in front of a computer terminal hours at a time, carrying on the only conversations he or

she will have through typing on the screen. If we replace real relationships with electronic

ones, our identities as fully human may be lost.

A second danger involves trust and betrayal. The heart of any community, virtual or real, is

trust, and we develop trust through the provision of honest information about ourselves to

others. We do this on the Internet when we visit certain websites, when we purchase

commodities, or when we transmit information. Those of us who regularly use the Internet

reveal considerable amounts of information about ourselves--information that may fall into

untrustworthy hands. The ultimate betrayal has a quality of Big Brother to it--that power elites

who have commodified the Internet may be gathering dossiers and using our data to more

specifically market to us or to control our behavior. Proponents of this particular criticism liken



the Internet to Jeremy Bentham's Pantopticon--the prison where every inmate is under

constant surveillance.(95)

Perhaps the most telling critique of virtual community and use of the Internet as a

replacement for all sorts of other deliberative and information-gathering activities is the loss of serendipity--the accidental and sometimes astonishing discoveries that can greatly enhance

the quality of life. When we e-mail our colleagues rather than drop in at their offices down the

hall, or use online search engines rather than libraries, we may be reducing the number of

opportunities we have to make connections or follow paths leading to new ideas and

relationships.(96)

What is the prognosis, then, for authentic communication in America's next century? We seem

to be at a crossroads where we have a choice: we can make great advances in dialogue and

deliberation, using available technologies to our best advantage--as it appears Blacksburg,

Virginia, has done--or we can subside into a passive citizen role, endangering democratic social

and political institutions that we claim to cherish, and using these technologies as a shield

against responsibility or not at all. Dewey would have us strive to regain responsible, active

roles in deliberation and inquiry--using technology, not being used by it--to achieve ends of our

own devising.

Such a course would not be easy. Many of us enjoy relative prosperity as the proper fruits of

industrial and technological progress. Many of us find no time in our busy days and evenings

for community-building associations and activities, preferring instead to spend our evenings

watching television or surfing the Internet. We have heard the phrase "citizen apathy" so often

applied that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have let experts decide what

government should do for so long that we no longer feel we can make a difference. The high

road of reclaiming responsibility for deliberative decision making is not the easy choice, but, if

we want to revitalize our democratic society, this is the road we must travel.

The democracy Tocqueville so admired in America was the result of a "beautiful, but fragile,

experiment."(97) However, we have come to regard it as an entitlement, fixed and

unchanging, as if it could and would continue to prosper without attention. Dewey often

admonished against this attitude of neglect, reminding us that we "have to recreate by

deliberate and determined endeavor the kind of democracy which in its origin ... was largely

the product of a fortunate combination of men and circumstances."(98) He described

democracy as the most ethical of human associations--one that encompasses "belief in the

ability of human experience to generate the aims and methods by which further experience

will grow in ordered richness ... the faith that the process of experience is more important than

any result attained ... [and one that] is the sole way of living which believes wholeheartedly in

the process of experience as end and as means."(99) The opportunity to participate in



developing both the means and ends of our communities, through authentic dialogue and

collective inquiry--both in person and online--is an appropriate reward for taking the risk and

making the effort involved in revitalizing our deliberative roles.

REFERENCES

(1.) The 37 volumes of Dewey's collected works were edited by Jo Ann Boydston and published

by the Southern Illinois University Press. They are divided into The Early Works of John Dewey,

1882-1898 (5 vols.), The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924 (15 vols.), and The Later

Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953 (17 vols.) and were published between 1969 and 1990. For

ease of reference, citations from these works will be abbreviated as EW, MW, and LW, with

volume and page numbers following. Dewey material from other sources will be given full

citations. Two excellent biographies of Dewey help to sort Dewey's work: Ryan, Alan. John

Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism; W. W. Norton & Company: New York, 1995.;

and Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy: Cornell University Press:

Ithaca, NY, 1991.

(2.) Evans, Karen G. Reclaiming John Dewey: Democracy, Inquiry, Pragmatism, and Public

Management. presented at the Fourth National Public Management Research Conference, The

University of Georgia: Athens, GA, Oct 30-Nov 1, 1997, 4.

(3.) Dewey, John. MW 9 [Democracy and Education], 7, emphasis in original. According tophysicist David Bohm, communication is the human activity that makes society. See his Bohm,

David. Unfolding Meaning: A Weekend of Dialogue; Routledge: London, 1985, 79.

(4.) Sehr, David T. Education for Public Democracy; State University of New York Press: Albany,

NY, 1997, 58.

(5.) Dewey, John. LW 2 [The Public and Its Problems], 365.


NY, 1997, 58.



(7.) Dewey, John. L W 5 [Individualism Old and New] and L W 11 [Liberalism and Social Action];

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition; The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 1958, 38-

49, and Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution; Penguin Books: New York, 1977, 139.

(8.) Electronic communication via the Internet comprises a different medium from these.While it is communication across an impersonal, invisible medium like television and radio, the

give and take of immediate interaction is possible through the Internet.


NY, 1997, 60.

(10.) Dewey, John. MW 1 [The School and Society], 30.

(11.) Dewey's educational philosophy is fully treated in his The School and Society [MW 1] and

Democracy and Education [MW 4].

(12.) West, Cornel. The American Evasion of Philosophy: ,4 Genealogy of Pragmatism;

University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, WI, 1989, 97.

(13.) Burke, Tom. Dewey's New Logic: A Reply to Russell; The University of Chicago Press:

Chicago, IL, 1994, 22. See also, Lavine, T. Z. America and the Contestations of Modernity. In

Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics, Saatkamp, H. J. Jr., Ed.; State

University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1995, 37-49, 42-43.

(14.) Dewey, John. LW 12, 108. See also his LW 4, 183; LW 12, 121; and Alexander, T. M. John

Dewey and the Roots of Democratic Imagination. In Recovering Pragmatism's Voice: The

Classical Tradition, Rorty, and the Philosophy of Communication, Langsdorf, L.; Smith, A. R.,

Eds.; State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1995, 131-154, 139.


Management. Presented at the Fourth National Public Management Research Conference, The







(17.) For a particularly succinct discussion of the problematic relationship between democracyand bureaucracy, see Etzioni-Halevy, Eva. Bureaucracy and Democracy: ,4 Political Dilemma;

Routledge & Kegan Paul: London, 1984.

(18.) Dewey, John. The Modes of Societal Life. In Intelligence in the Modern WorM: John

Dewey's Philosophy, Ratner, Joseph, Ed.; Random House: New York, 1939, 365-404, 368.

(19.) Dewey, John. The Modes of Societal Life. In Intelligence in the Modern World: John

Dewey's Philosophy, Ratner, Joseph, Ed.; Random House: New York, 1939, 367.

(20.) Angus, Ian. Democracy and the Constitution of Audiences: A Comparative Media Theory

Perspective. In Viewing, Reading, Listening: Audiences and Cultural Reception, Cruz, Jon, Lewis,

Justin, Eds.; Westview Press: Boulder, CO, 1994, 233-252, 233.

(21.) Angus, lan. Democracy and the Constitution of Audiences: A Comparative Media Theory


Justin, Eds.; Westview Press: Boulder, CO, 1994, 234.

(22.) Bickford, Susan. The Dissonance of Democracy: Listening, Conflict, and Citizenship;

Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1996, 27-29.


Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1996, 30. Bickford paraphrases and cites Wiggins, David.

Deliberation and Practical Reason. In Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg, Ed.;

University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, 1980, 236.

(24.) Dewey, John. MW 14 [Human Nature and Conduct], 132.

(25.) Dewey, MW 14, 141-142.



(26.) Ediger, Jeffrey. The Act of Listening is Not `Active Listening'. Studies in Symbolic

Interaction 1996, 20, 139-163, 140.

(27.) Bohm, David. Unfolding Meaning: Weekend of Dialogue; Routledge: London, 1985, 118.


Interaction 1996, 151.


Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1996, 41.




Interaction 1996, 152.

(32.) Bickford, Susan. The Dissonance of Democracy: Listening, Conflict, and Citizenship;Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1996, 148.



(34.) Blumler, Jay G.; Gurevitch, Michael. The Crisis of Public Communication; Routledge:

London, 1995, 97.

(35.) MUDs and all of the other variants described here comprise a family of computer

programs that are networked, multi-participant, user-extensible systems that permit the

creation of text-based synchronous interactions among users. They were first developed to

permit the playing of role-based games by computer, and expanded to serve other social and

cultural purposes. See, Elizabeth M. Reid. Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Realities.



[C] 1994, which can be found on the World Wide Web at

http://www.ee.mu.oz.au/papers/emr/ cult-form.html#Intro. (7 June 1998).

(36.) Fernback, Jan; Thompson, Brad. Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?;

http://www.well.com/user/hlr/texts/VCcivil.htm. 8. (5 June 1998).

(37.) Kuttner, Robert. Serendipity.com. The Washington Post 1997, Dec 29, A17.

(38.) Silberman, Steve. Growing a Community: Part 1;

http://www.hotwired.com/packet/silberman/97/10/index3a.htm. 3. (4 June 1998).

(39.) Any Internet user can access the history of the BEVnet online at: http://www.bev.net.

(40.) Patterson, Scott J. Evaluating the Blacksburg Electronic Village. In Community Networks:

Lessons from Blacksburg, Virginia, Cohill, Andrew Michael; Kavanaugh, Andrea L. Eds.; Artech

House: Boston. MA, 1997, 55-71, 62ff.



House: Boston. MA, 1997, 63.








Lessons .from Blacksburg, Virginia, Cohill, Andrew Michael; Kavanaugh, Andrea L. Eds.; Artech




(45.) How many BEV members are there? BEV Membership and Host Statistics;

http://www.bev.net/wwwstat/userdata.htm (13 May 1998).

(46.) Kavanaugh, Andrea. ABOUT TOWN Electronic Village Survey Highlights. About Town:

Newsletter of the Town of Blacksburg 1998, (Apr-June), 4.

(47.) Taylor, Wendy; Jerome, Marty Jerome. Blind Date. PC Computing 1998, 11 (7 July), 75.

(48.) Taylor, Wendy; Jerome, Marry Jerome. Blind Date. PC Computing 1998, 11 (7 July), 75.

(49.) Taylor, Wendy; Jerome, Marty Jerome. Blind Date. PC Computing 1998, 11 (7 July), 75.;

The 50 percent figure for female participation on the Internet has grown from a mere 5

percent in 1994.

(50.) A list of these service providers is available on the Montgomery County Public School

system's homepage--http://crusher.bev.net/ education/schools/

(51.) Goals of the BEV. Blacksburg Electronic Village - About the BEV;

http://www.bev.net/project/brochures/about.html#5. (13 May 1998).

(52.) BEV in everyday life. Blacksburg Electronic Village - About the BEV;

http://www.bev.net/project/brochures/about.html#5. (13 May 1998). Electronic connectivity

for senior citizens presents an interesting dilemma. Seniors are more likely to need such

connection than are younger people, as age increases and the ability to get out and about

decreases. Yet, seniors are uncomfortable with the technology itself. Futurist, Nicholas

Negroponte of MIT sees our electronic connection growing in spite of the reluctance of seniors

to embrace it. He recommends that seniors get a kid to help them learn the ropes of email and

other services. See, Carlson, Elliot and Leah Glasheen. MIT futurist sees `connected' nation.

AARP Bulletin 1998, 39 (4 Apr), 1; 12-13; 15.

(53.) BEV in everyday life. Blacksburg Electronic Village - About the BEV;

http://www.bev.net/project/brochures/about.html#5. (13 May 1998).



(54.) See, Cohill, Andrew Michael; Kavanaugh, Andrea Lee, Eds. Community Networks: Lessons

from Blacksburg, Virginia; Artech House: Boston, MA, 1997.; for a full description of the

development and current operation of the Blacksburg Electronic Village.

(55.) Ward, Luke. Community Network Technology. In Community Networks: Lessons fromBlacksburg, Virginia, Cohill, Andrew Michael; Kavanaugh, Andrea Lee, Eds.; Artech House:

Boston, MA, 1997, 159-234, 202ff.

(56.) The BEV history project results are available online at http:// history.bev.net/bevhist/.

More detail on interface research is available online at

http://crusher.bev.net/project/research/Curriculum design research is available online at

http://crusher.bev.net/project/research/ planning.html. You can also visit the Montgomery

County Public Schools site at http://crusher.bev.net/education/schools/.




















(70.) Slouka, Mark. Public Life in Electropolis. Feed 1998, http://

www.feedmag.com/95.08dialog/95.08dialogl.htm, 4. (4 June).

(71.) Mitchell, William. Public Life in Electropolis. Feed 1998, http://

www.feedmag.com/95.08dialog'95.08dialogl.htm 5. (4 June).

(72.) Slouka, Mark. Public Life in Electropolis. Feed 1998, http://

www.feedmag.com/95.08dialog/95.08dialog2.htm, 5. (4 June 1998).


www.feedmag.com/95.08dialog/95.08dialog2.htm, 4 (4 June).


www.feedmag.com/95.08dialog/95.08dialog3.htm, 2. (4 June).

(75.) de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America, Vol. 1, Phillips Bradley, Ed.; Vintage Books:

New York, 1990, 192.


New York, 1990, 107.


New York, 1990, 107.

(78.) Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems; Reprint by Alan Swallow: Denver, CO, 1954,

151.

(79.) See, Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy: Cornell University

Press: Ithaca, NY, 1991.; especially chapter 12, and Dewey, LW 11 [Liberalism and Social

Action] and LW 5 [Individualism Old and New] for an expanded discussion of Dewey's view of

the relationship between the individual and society.



(80.) Hickman, Larry A. John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology; Indiana University Press:

Bloomington, IN, 1990, 169.

(81.) Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition; The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL, 1958.

(82.) Angus, lan. Democracy and the Constitution of Audiences: A Comparative Media Theory


Justin, Eds.; Westview Press: Boulder, CO, 1994, 248.



(84.) Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone. Journal of Democracy 1995, 6, 6578; and Putnam,

Robert D. Bowling Alone Revisited. The Responsive Community 1995, 5 (Spring), 18-33.

(85.) Schwartz, Evan. Looking for Community on the Internet. The Responsive Community

1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 54-58, 55.


1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 56.

(87.) Dyson, Esther. Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age; Broadway Books: New

York, 1997, 34-36.



University of Georgia: Athens, GA, Oct 30-Nov 1, 1997, 2-3.

(89.) Dyson, Esther. Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age; Broadway Books: New

York, 1997, 278.




1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 57.


1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 57.


1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 58.


1994/1995, 5 (Winter), 57; see Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on

the Electronic Frontier; Addison-Wesley Publishing Company: Reading, MA, 1993.; for an

expanded discussion of the pros and cons of virtual communities.

(94.) Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier;

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company: Reading, MA, 1993, 6.

(95.) Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier;

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company: Reading, MA, 1993, 289-297; See, also, Merlino, Lauren.

Information Overload. Computer Life 1998, (May), 56-59, 130.; Not only the Internet, but all

the rest of today's electronic connecting devices---especially cell phones and pagers--have hadthe effect of contributing both to an information overload and to a further erosion of what the

private space means. Maintaining a telephone answering machine to pick up messages while

you are out or busy is no longer enough. It has become almost a societal norm to have a pager

so that you are instantly available for critical calls, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

At least the Panopticon was restricted to a physical building and line-of-sight. Today's

electronic surveillance is not so limited, and the prisoner carries the equipment voluntarily.

(96.) Kuttner, Robert. Serendipity.com. The Washington Post 1997, Dec 29, A17.






(98.) Dewey, John. Creative Democracy--The Task Before Us. In The Philosopher of the

Common Man: Essays in Honor of John Dewey to Celebrate His Eightieth Birthday, 2nd Ed.;

Greenwood Press: New York, 1968, 220-228, 221.

(99.) Dewey, John. Creative Democracy--The Task Before Us. In The Philosopher of theCommon Man: Essays in Honor of John Dewey to Celebrate His Eightieth Birthday, 2nd Ed.;

Greenwood Press: New York, 1968, 227-228.

Documents

Dewey and the dialogical process