Abstract

With 1500 active conferences, over 1000 contributions a day from over 10,000 contributors around the world, and perhaps 100,000 readers, IBMPC is the oldest and largest computer conferencing facility in IBM. This study is a detailed observation of the development of IBMPC, including its structures, genres of interaction, processes of rules formation, means of rules enforcement, and impact on IBM. It explores two general questions:

  1. What is the structure, use, and practice of computer conferencing on IBM's "IBMPC" computer conferencing facility? The focus of the study is on an in-house facility, in operation for over eight years, in which large numbers of people routinely exchange messages. While these features of IBMPC distinguish it from other computer conferencing facilities, and thus impose limits on the generalizability of the study, the size and long tenure of IBMPC provide a measure of what other facilities could become.
  2. What is the nature of IBMPC as an instance of a communication medium? What does the experience of IBMPC tell us about computer conferencing as a communication medium? These questions are raised in the context of other questions about the relationship between interpersonal communication and mass communication. Presented here is a theory of media organized around four interacting primitive concepts -- mediators, characteristics, effects, and practices -- that asserts that media are continuous reinventions of the people that use them. IBM's IBMPC computer conferencing facility can be regarded as an instance of a continuously reinvented medium. This study documents this reinvention, and the structures IBMPC has evolved to manage its own evolution.

The study draws on several sources of data, including participant observation, archival data, and surveys of IBMPC participants. There are several detailed analyses of specific events on the facility, including one of interaction that occurred in the hours following the Challenger space shuttle explosion. Three typologies of media are presented, including a formal typology of 52 media. Other topics explored include "murder by meta-discussion", "meta-forums", the value of information versus discussion, comparative use of media in IBM, typological assessment of a medium's prospects for success, and computer conferencing based distributed communities.