Biella asks: “Might the categories of the virtual and post-modern to describe social interactive space on the Net obscure more than reveal?” She’s going to compare IRC and Carribean street culture. [Abstract] (Herpaper is here, at least temporarily.)

There have been two shortcomings in discussions of social interactions on the Net: 1. Proving that a community is “real” rather than looking at the community itself. 2. Lumping the Net into one universal bucket, missing differences.

Biella says (and I quote from her paper):

IRC and Caribbean street talk, both a result of diasporic realities, are public spaces in which clever word play, performance, and stream of consciousness conversation predominate. …

Like the street, IRC is not really a “culture” but a public space with its own norms and conventions where people can drop in from time to time to see what is going on, engage in the topic of the day, get some work done, or just lurk. In both domains, stream of consciousness talk readily flows because of the multiple threads of conversations that occur simultaneously…

There are, of course, many ways the two are not alike:

Caribbean street talk unfolded under the heat of the sun, with bodies in full motion, tone and gesture being an integral facet of the linguistic play borne from a brutal history. Understanding the female domestic zone of the yard and the familial push for respectability is required to contextualize street talk and reputation building as part of a broader social world.

IRC’s context is that of socio-economic privilege…

Why does this type of comparison matter?

The virtual may really not be as important of a facet in this case although really it is only through serious and sustained comparison that we can even arrive at a more clear sense of what is unique about this form communication

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