Vayreda, Agnes, Anna Galvez, Francesc Nunez, Blanca Callen


Participating in an electronic forum: the difference gender makes

Abstract

This report presents the results of an empirical study in relation with group dynamics generated in an electronic forum and on the ways in which gender differences are both relevant and persistent in the organization of these social relations. The analysed electronic forum consists of students enrolled on the Humanities and Philology Degrees of the UOC, Open University of Catalonia which campus is virtual. For our research the fact that this forum is not an "anonymous place" is particularly significant, as all the participatory students know each other's name and sex. On the other hand, it does not necessarily mean that participants meet in "real life". In order to develop this research, we have taken the concept of "positioning" (Davis and Harré, 1990) as the analytic unit, as a way of (a) recognizing the importance of discursive practices in the production and development of social ties, (b) showing the way that men and women are socially positioned by these discursive practices and (c) showing the fundamental role of these discursive practices in the production of subjectivity.