Web Rings as Computer-Mediated Communication

As recently as 1994, academic journals such as Communication Education were continuing to define 'computer-mediated communication' as a decidedly dialogic or conversational phenomenon. Focusing on such technologies as electronic bulletin boards, the Usenet and email, the journal's articles attempted to come to grips with the 'virtual' dimension of text-based, computerized communication. Four short years later, the Internet has become a much more complex, commercialized, politicized and increasingly networked environment, to the extent that web-based resources--particularly home page addresses-- have become fully integrated and hypertextually linked into 'traditional' CMC dialogic technologies. The widespread use of email and usenet interfaces from Netscape and Microsoft, for instance, have enabled the linking of web addresses within the body of posts. In addition to conversing one-on one, users now increasingly refer, via an automated link, to web-based resources. Granted, users don't communicate with each o

Elmer, Greg. Computer-Mediated Communication (1999). Articles>Information Design>Web Design