[-empyre-] listserv dialogue

[Heidi May]

Joseph,

I can relate....I find my researcher brain taking over when reading  
email list discussions as I desire more organization through choice of  
subject lines and categorization. I guess there is always the chance  
of missing something significant if it doesn't neatly fit into a  
category, however, after teaching online for years I personally like  
the idea of recreating and renaming specific subject lines that better  
represent the content of the message. I think the organization can be  
improved upon in this listserv, but not by the application...by us.  
That said, if there is an exchange of ideas, it's still dialogue in my  
opinion. However....my personal understanding and definition of  
dialogue is quite broad perhaps, since I think dialogue can happen  
between internally and externally between people, and perhaps even  
objects including art.

Thanks for starting this conversation.

Heidi

On 24-Jan-11, at 5:00 PM, empyre-request at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:

> I have found the discussion to be fascinating in substance yet  
> maddeningly disjointed in structure.  This is the first time I have  
> actively participated in such an email based "conversation".  I put  
> this in quotes as it seems fascinating that, in the same manner we  
> denote "friends" on facebook we seem to willingly embrace this type  
> of forum as a "discussion" or "dialog" when in reality what we are  
> doing might be more similar to a very smart chain letter or perhaps  
> an exquisite corpse of theoretical discourse. This may sound like a  
> criticism yet I do not necessarily intend it as such - it would seem  
> a good place
>  to start commenting on the notion of the netopticon by noting  
> perhaps how readily we come to embrace such seemingly benign  
> alterations of words such as "friends" on Facebook or "discussion"  
> in this context.