"Every Home Is Wired":
3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net
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Mailing-lists are also the medium of choice for smaller and more specific fan communities, whose size may not warrant the creation of a newsgroup of their own: in the Prog field, for example, there are lists for particular bands (like IQ or Van der Graaf Generator), and sub-genres (such as more obscure Prog or post-classical music). Even when the fan base grows or newsgroups are created, however, mailing-lists do not necessarily close down: the large audience of King Crimson-related music is still served only by its (now equally large) mailing-list Elephant Talk, for example, to which Robert Fripp and other band members occasionally contribute. Alt.music.yes is augmented by Notes from the Edge, which most importantly provides official news and interviews to balance the many rumours on the newsgroup. While newsgroups are the general community's meeting-places, then, mailing-lists are often its newspapers (with more or less prominent 'letters to the editor' sections), and Web sites -- which will be discussed later -- its billboards, TV, and shops.9 Bit 20
Topical Fields Covered in Newsgroup Communication
As Baym notes, "the creation of forms of expressive communication, identity, relationships, and norms through communicative practice in computer-mediated groups is pivotal to [the] process of creating community" (161); it will be useful to work through these forms of communicative practice one by one in order to find how the online Prog community is created. Beginning with expressive communication itself, it is first necessary to analyse the topics covered in such communication. From a close reading of r.m.p and a.m.y, centrally, as well as of some related newsgroups and mailing-lists, there emerge the following broadly definable subject areas (exemplary posts can be found in Appendix A.2 -- follow the links at the beginning of each area): Bit 21

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© 1998 Axel Bruns