"Every Home Is Wired":
3 -- The Progressive Rock Community on the Net
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The positive side of such free choice of identity is, however, that Net communication removes many ties and restrictions connected to the 'real world' (in the same way that the asynchronous nature of newsgroup participation has removed strict temporal requirements); this may also help to overcome the present gender bias in the Prog and Internet subcultures, in cases where the participation of women in the musical and computing communities has so far been limited by feelings that their presence was for some reason inappropriate. Bit 65
The resulting communication between self-chosen identities is what Walther calls "'hyperpersonal communication' -- CMC that is more socially desirable than we tend to experience in parallel FtF interaction" (17). This type of interaction occurs, he summarises,

when users experience commonality and are self-aware, physically separated, and communicating via a limited-cues channel that allows them to selectively self-present and edit; to construct and reciprocate representations of their partners and relations without the interference of environmental reality. Perhaps moreso [sic] when this communication is asynchronous and/or when the CMC link is the only link there is. (33)

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© 1998 Axel Bruns