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Hi Ryan,

Jenny Preece, from the University of Maryland, has done a lot of work on 
lurkers in online communities:

Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. (2003) Silent Participants: Getting to Know 
Lurkers Better. In C. Leug & D. Fisher (Eds.) From /Usenet to CoWebs: 
Interacting with Social Information Spaces. /Springer-Verlag: Amsterdam, 
Holland. (in press)  

Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. (2001)  Why Lurkers Lurk. AMCIS Conference, 
Boston, June 
http://snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/research/whylurk.pdf  

Nonnecke, B. and Preece, J. (2000) Lurker Demographics: Counting the 
Silent. Proceedings of CHI'2000, Hague, The Netherlands, 73-80.


cheers,
- Fernanda Viegas


_ 
<http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/%7Epreece/fullcv.htm#Refereed%20Conference%20Publications> 
<http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/%7Epreece/fullcv.htm#Refereed%20Conference%20Publications>_
Ryan Lanham wrote:

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>
>Has anyone studied "lurkers" in communities or networks?  I am reminded
>of Erving Goffman's famous front stage/back stage metaphors.  What role
>do lurkers perform?  Are they actors?  Is there an audience effect to
>discourse on listservs?  
>
>We "publish" to literally (at least etymologically) to make things
>public.  Of course that is no long the primary purpose of publishing--it
>has lost the ends for the means.  We publish now to build careers.  But
>listservs are different.  Their immediacy gives an unknown actor--the
>lurker--strange powers.  What are they?  What can be known about
>lurkers?
>
>I see a sort of capacitance issue again.  Someone builds up (or doesn't
>a charge) and then discharges iff certain events occur.  Discourse must
>press certainly ontological boundary objects for these discharges to
>surface.  Or perhaps those happen in people's lives.  Assassins strike
>when officials are having highly visible portions of their career.  In
>short, boundary stresses provoke "lurkers" whether they are constructive
>or destructive.  
>
>Much is written on democratic participation.  Do they know anything
>about lurkers in that part of the discourse universe?  What about
>lurkers in markets in business?  What role do they have?  There must be
>some sort of information theory of this.
>
>Ryan Lanham
>
>  
>
>>long time lurker but first time poster to this "community"  ;-)
>>
>>Samer Faraj
>>    
>>
>
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