Page 178 - Culture Technology Communication

Diversity in On-Line Discussions:
A Study of Cultural and Gender
Differences in Listservs

Concetta M. Stewart, Stella F. Shields, Nandini Sen

Introduction
The emergence of a global information infrastructure (GII) has cre-
ated more opportunities for multicultural communication in the
form of “on-line communities.” By their nature these communities
are as diverse as the technologies of the GII. A commonly-held belief
is that these on-line communities are also naturally democratic and
open. As a result, important issues are being raised concerning how
these different groups are coping with new technologies and what
role factors such as gender and culture play in participation in and
creation of these new systems.
The Internet draws together people of different cultural groups,
both locally and around the world. There is a problem, however, with
the predominant models of policy and research that assume that
democratic participation in networked systems simply comes from
the equal availability of technology and the necessary skills to access
these systems. Previous research has shown that this is not the case
(Balka 1993; Ebben and Kramerae 1993; Herring 1996; Herring
1993; Kramerae and Taylor 1993). Instead, we have seen that even
with the most basic of systems, women and minorities are not par-
ticipating in anywhere near equal numbers (Nielson Media Re-
search 1996; Spender 1995; Stewart et al. 1997). Consequently, a key
goal of research in this area must be to inform the creation of policies
to improve the equity of access and use of these new technologies by
all groups.
The primary focus of this research, then, is how groups who are
typically absent from these on-line communities, such as women and

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