The Editors' Corner: The Anthropologist and the Virtual Community 

	The last two years have revolutionized communication with the 
coming of the Internet and the World Wide Web into everyday use.  In 
many areas of the world it has changed communication dramatically and 
affected how business, research, and teaching are done.  As 
anthropologists,  we are participants and observers of this 
revolution through our interests in diversity, community, and the 
long-term evolution of social phenomena. These were language, writing, 
the printing press, and electronic media.  The last has included the 
telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, computers, and now the 
Web. Each has dramatically increased the ability for a message to be 
communicated.  With the Internet and its Web, Marshall McLuhan's "the 
medium is the message" continues to be relevant. With hyperlinks, 
electronic bulletin boards, email, and so on, it might be fair to 
continue that saying with "the message is the connection". 

	In any case, the "virtual community" is here to stay with 
anthropologists as its active participants.  From an anthropological 
point of view, you, the readers, are members of the virtual community 
and indeed are relatively sophisticated members. You are all virtual 
kin.  Each of you is related and can reference your kin by email and 
Internet addresses. You all know the kinship tags -"edu" for 
education, "mil" for military, "com" for commercial, and so on. You 
understand the significance of "usernames" and "aliases".  In fact, 
one could argue that just by subscribing to JWA, anthro-l, 
sci.anthropology, etc., that you have passed a type of "rite de 
passage" and have become influential or at least more fully 
participatory in the virtual community.
 
	So we thought we would use this issue's Corner to say a few 
words about anthropology, anthropologists, and the virtual community.  
We see two very important roles for anthropologists.  First, as 
cultural participants, and second, as ethnographers of the community, 
we can note that the virtual community is ideally suited for both 
roles.  In this issue, we consider the former role leaving the
latter for the next issue.  

	Some of the stages proposed by Russ Bernard for participant 
observation are also appropriate to those who observe the virtual 
community.  In his system, being a participant observer begins with 
"initial contact".  In the case of the virtual community, this 
entrance is easy.  One requires only a computer and the means to 
access the Internet -- no need to trudge into the Ituri Rain Forest 
ala Turnbull, or ride by horseback into Mesa Verde with the 
Wetheriall Brothers, or voyage with Jessup along the Chukchee 
Peninsula.  Yet, one may travel into homes thousands of kilometres 
away and communicate with people from far lands whose lives are so 
different from one's own that communication itself is fraught with 
misunderstanding.  Indeed, icons have been developed to give context 
to an otherwise flat experience.  Little smiley faces and winks 
emote concepts text alone cannot transfer.  This journey is not 
without risks.  Rules of conduct are not always spelled out and 
violations may lead to sanction through "flames" or denial of 
access.  

	Bernard's next stage is "shock" where, once in the 
community, one is surprised by its openess and complexity.  This is 
true of both the field and the virtual experience.  Field 
researcher's problems with privacy are reflected in the openess of 
the Internet.  One never knows how far one's words are spreading, 
nor when, where, or how they may reappear in another context.  The 
message spreads like ripples on a pond.  An old story tells how an 
ethnographer working in a village in southern Vaucluse hears one of 
his own stories recounted decades later by a native of the region 
who claims it is traditional.  This phenomenon is common on the 
Net; however, for the virtual anthropologist, the interval between 
transmissions may be as brief as a few minutes.  Time is compressed 
by the Internet.  What took years now may happen in seconds.

	Similarly, one quickly realizes how big the "other" is when 
one first browses the Net, and that there are "others" out there. 
There are actually many sets of "others" that one encounters on the 
Net.  There are "others' in the sense that one may be interacting 
with a very large number of individuals. They need not be foreign 
nor need they be apparent, as Net citizens partake in a wide range 
of behavior.  Some participate, some lurk, and some come and go.  
There are "others" who may never be seen by even the most careful 
observer.  These "ghosts in the machine" scurry around behind 
firewalls, building pages, and using resources which are open only 
to members of elite groups such as local users and paid 
subscribers.  There are "others" whose nature is defined by their 
different expertise.  Some of them have exponentially more 
experience and can make the Internet sing in ways a newcomer may 
only have just begun to perceive.  There are the "others' who are 
foreign in thought, language, and idea.  There are a large numbers 
of these whose abundance makes the Web complex.  A feeling of 
great awe is created when one realizes that one's words might be 
seen, read, or even heard by millions of people around the world.  
That few whose "shot was heard around the world" has been replaced 
by the "many whose words are read around the world". 

	As one becomes more experienced, one's expectations of 
openness and ease of communication become jaded and little 
annoyances become increasingly important.  Slow transmission 
speeds, broken connections, disappearing Web pages, hyperlink 
connections that lead into oblivion, and the physical stress of 
hours spent hunched over a keyboard and squinting at a low 
resolution monitor begin to take their toll.  One begins to 
realize that the Web is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.  
You think you understand it but it changes, as in the song, it 
just "keeps slip, sliding away".  The Internet is like mud in 
your fingers, tangible yet elusive.

	The next stage is "discovering the obvious".  As one 
examines the Internet, one rapidly feels that the systematic 
discovery of information and behavior is so self-evident that 
there is really no need for anyone to bother studying it.  
In addition, there is a large and growing body of public 
"common knowledge" which is tempting to accept and naturally 
discourages challenge.  For example, it is widely accepted that 
the Web is highly addictive, a "bourgeois" Las Vegas.  Indeed, 
campuses are already forming counseling programs to help 
addicted students.  (Similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, one 
expects that "Web-Surfers Annonymous" will soon follow with a 
twelve-step withdrawal program.)  Everyone believes that there 
are marvelous prizes on the Web, for which one needs only to 
play long enough to win.  This phenomenon appeals to our 
innate desire to get something for nothing.  Further, everyone 
knows that the Net is completely impersonal, hence the popular 
joke that your daily correspondent may actually be someone's 
dog.  The public and even many politicians seem convinced that 
the Internet is dangerously saturated with images of child 
pornography and information on atomic bomb building.  These 
may be urban myths, but as in the case of any myth, there is 
an important kernel of truth.

	Most anthropologists physically leave their own 
community to do their research.  So do virtual anthropologists,
when they log onto their computer and travel through their 
modem onto the Web.  They may interact with a person in a 
community across the globe in seconds; however, it is not quite 
the same experience as physically entering a foreign community.
Traditional research is validated by travel to the exotic and 
recognising the similarities between the "other" and ourselves.  
But, when visiting the virtual community, the "other" becomes 
ourself.  The resulting lack of exotica means that one begins 
to doubt whether one is truly conducting anthropological 
research.  So virtual anthropologists question the value of 
their work in ways that traditional anthropologists do not.  
These fears are only fanned by colleagues who do not appreciate 
their efforts and who feel they should participate in more
"mainstream" anthropology.  While there are similarities to the 
experiences of applied anthropologists who work in their own 
communities, such as medical anthropologists in hospitals and 
contract archaeologists in planned pipeline corridors and 
housing subdivisions, applied anthropological research is by 
definition validated by its funding.  Up to this point, 
research on the Internet has attracted very little funding 
except in marketing. 

	As Wagley suggests, all anthropologists are intruders 
and returning to the study community after a break 
demonstrates the reality of the anthropologist's genuine and 
sincere interest.  But this is just a step in a broader cycle.  
In more traditional anthropological research, the process of 
looping between one's own community and the chosen study area 
acts to validate both the research itself and the personal 
integrity and goals of researcher.  Each time one writes about 
the study community, one becomes a greater expert in one's own 
community and each time one returns to the study community, 
one demonstrates one's devotion to the adopted community.  But
the virtual community is too diverse, too fragmented, and 
expanding too rapidly to notice the departure of virtual kin 
let alone participating anthropologists.  The result is not 
only the lack of validation, but the loss of the need to 
return to the same community.  The authors believe that one of 
the results of virtual participant observation will be the 
breakdown of the traditional area concept and the area expert 
in the discipline. 

	"Focusing" usually takes place as does modification of 
the field work.  For the virtual anthropologist, changing 
one's participation in the culture is considerably easier than 
it is for the traditional anthropologist.  A few strokes of a 
computer keyboard sends you from one continent to another.  
Bulletin boards can be joined or left within minutes, while 
months of data can be deleted in a second (oops) and 
reobtained in a different format or with a different spin in a 
similarly short time.  Information on the Internet is ephemeral 
yet permenant.  The difference is that the virtual 
anthropologist has far more control over access to information 
than does the traditional anthropologist.  They also control 
the degree of ephemerality.

	Finally, Bernard observes that the participant-observer 
eventually leaves the field. He notes that there is often a 
legitimate expectation on both sides that relationships may be 
permanent.  But for our colleagues in the virtual community, 
there is a sense that you never leave the field.  The Web is 
always there flickering invitingly over one's keyboard.  On the
other hand, there is also a sense that relationships in the 
virtual community are naturally fleeting.

	When one of us was an undergraduate and was first 
thinking about anthropology as a career, he was advised that:

	"Anthropology is not a career.  It is a way of 
	life.  You should be aware that if you 
	participate in anthropology, you will leave 
	your culture behind.  Anthropologists do not 
	belong to any culture because they spend their 
	lives translating one culture to another.  
	Anthropologists reside in the railway station 
	between cultures." 

The virtual community has made the entire world that railway 
station and simultaneously has become a culture in itself.

Your editors,

	Ezra Zubrow and Hugh Jarvis