What's Everybody Talking about?: Message Functions and Topics on Electronic Lists and Newsgroups in Information and Library Science

Abstract

The use of listserv software and usenet newsgroups to support discussion among professionals in library and information science has become commonplace in the 1990s. The current research was conducted to find out which topics of discussion are dominant and which functions are performed by the messages posted to discussion groups in library and information science. In fall 1994, twenty-one students in an introductory course on communication processes completed analyses of fourteen different electronic lists or newsgroups as their term projects. Messages on each list or newsgroup were captured for approximately one month. Each message or partial message was described, in terms of its topic and its function, and frequencies were calculated. The topics most frequently discussed in each group were reasonably consistent with the group's stated purpose. In addition, technology topics were frequently discussed, as well as topics related to the library's clientele. The most common message functions were announcements, queries, and responses of various types. Comments made in the context of free-wheeling discussions also were common on some of the lists, but were rare on others. In addition to providing some baseline data on the topics and functions of messages in computer-mediated discussions, this study accomplished two pedagogical objectives: to introduce new students to electronic discussion groups as a channel for professional communication, and to introduce them to content analysis as a research method