Date: 97-04-18 13:16:00 EDT

Sender: gt4911b@prism.gatech.edu

To: gt4911b@prism.gatech.edu

Keith Freck: Alienation on the Net: A Comparison of BBS and Web Culture

    Good. I applaud your use of a conceptual background (from Lackoff) as a foundation for your argument. It is also good that you have a well-defined and coherently argued these in this essay.

     I do have some questions. What is your definition of alienation? (Certainly not Marxist.) What can't an individual be alienated from a homogeneous community? Also the notion of homogeneity can be problematic: the small homogeneous community can be one that rejects new ideas and cultural differences. The web can be seen as a glorious mixtures of different perspectives and points of view. On the other hand, I don't know that these different perspectives need to collide on the web. After all, packets to and from very different sites can pass quite happily on the Internet. Many subcommunities exist on the web. Perhaps it is just that mythical notion of unity that has been sacrificed. When you deny the liberation rhetoric, you are denying the fact the Web may be liberating for certain subcultures in certain ways. The heterogeneity of the Web means that it can achieve results, but "locally" and perhaps in temporally limited ways. On yet another hand (?), I think you are right that the BBS culture has somehow been lost or seriously compromised.How are you going to turn this tightly argued paper into a web site?

Grade: A

Jay David Bolter