The Rewards of Fostering Ethical, Civil E-Discourse

The Rewards of Fostering Ethical, Civil E-Discourse

by Diane Howard, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2003

World Association of Online Education

If we as e-communicators participate ethically and civilly in the virtual dimension of the World Wide Web, we can communicate effectively, collaborate viably, and produce great good in our world. The WWW has created a universal dimension where our minds and souls can freely and powerfully share, connect, and bond. Cyberspace scholar, Pierre Levy (1998), describes it as a deterritorialized world in which there is more of a sense of a global collective we who work, communicate, experience collectively in virtual communities, virtual corporations, and virtual democracies. Virtual technologies, while detaching communication from a particular time and place, can transmit a real, albeit not visceral, quasi-presence, which multiple people in various locations can collectively receive. The contemporary world of the Internet is more than simply an information highway (Levy, 1998). It is a unique dimension, which affects almost every area of many of our lives, in which we must use appropriate techniques to effectively collaborate, instruct, facilitate, and cooperate. We must utilize appropriate new skills to foster civil and productive relationships and communities in Cyberspace. We need to think through and articulate ethical guidelines for cyber collaboration and communication in order that we might foster the most productive civil cyber discourse and global contributions.

Professor Edna Aphek (2001), who lives in Jerusalem, Israel, is a living example of the potential power of Cyberspace to promote understanding, reconciliation, and civility in explosive parts of the world. She has experienced dreams come true in virtual, multicultural, learning communities in her region. She states, "It started somewhere out there, in the Cyberspace where no prejudice and hostility reign." Israel is a multicultural country made up of different ethnic groups who have separate cultures, languages and religions. There isn't much contact between some of the peoples, especially between Jews and Arabs, who comprise about 1/6th of Israel's total population. Online computer technology has endowed Professor Aphek and her associates with tools and possibilities for ongoing, multi-cultural, and multi-age communication between different groups. The technologies have no stigma and no prejudice attached to them. They make possible neutral, less biased communication between groups. Professor Aphek has witnessed Israeli and Arab youths learning together without hostility in the virtual worlds. The interactions of these young people have fostered meaningful, bonded relationships that have extended into their real worlds. Professor Aphek viably used Cyberspace to reach out, to connect, and to promote understanding among diverse groups.

Levy (1998) suggests that participants in virtual communities can add to collective intelligence.

      In Cyberspace…each of us is a potential transmitter and receiver in a space that is qualitatively differentiated, nonstatic,
      constructed by its participants, and explorable. Here… no longer encounter people exclusively by their name, geographical location,
      or social rank, but in the context of centers of interest, within a shared landscape of meaning and knowledge…
      Cyberspace provides large and geographically dispersed groups with instruments for cooperatively constructing a shared
      context…communication now involves participants in a form of interaction…This dynamic…collective context serves as an
      agent of collective intelligence, a kind of living bond…Cyberspace promotes connections…

Best-selling author, Howard Rheingold (2000), argues that virtual communities have the potential to empower ordinary citizens at a relatively small cost. He suggests that Cyberspace can provide lay citizens, as well as professionals, with leverage and power that is intellectual, social, commercial, and political. He further insists that civil and informed people must understand the leverage cyber technology provides. They must learn to use it wisely and constructively, as it can not fulfill its positive potential by itself. We must appreciate, respect, nurture, and foster positive and meaningful relationships in our visceral and virtual lives. We must learn to empower each other and to create constructive communities, which wisely and ethically use their leverage and power.

We can start by working at positive communication in our cyber communities. We can show respect for each other by observing and using netiquette in our e-groups and e-organizations. E-community members, who respect others in e-group, will participate in some of the following ways. They will take time to "listen" to an e-community's postings before sending a message and seek information from the group before contributing. Respectful e-participants will encourage communal and reciprocal discussions. They will avoid dumping ideas, premature judging, and/or flaming (posting hostile or negative messages or responses). They will paraphrase or repeat ideas or words of others before responding. Communicating support for others, they will give appropriate praise and comfort. In negotiating and collaborating, they will contribute and receive. They will acknowledge others' ideas, which are the others' intellectual property. They will debate ideas with respect. They will be honest, truthful, and will guard again naively forwarding erroneous and deceptive information. They will seek to ascertain and share truthful facts in forwarded materials.

Such e-community conduct and netiquette can facilitate civil and clear communication that will lead to productive and constructive discourse and accomplishments. By ethically respecting other e-community members enough to listen, support, assist, facilitate, encourage, and provide constructive feedback, we can empower each other and the organization to promote and produce powerful good our visceral and virtual world.

In their book Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, Palloff and Pratt (1999) suggest behaviors that facilitate developing effective e-communities. These are honesty, responsiveness, relevance, respect, openness, and empowerment. Just as we must appreciate, respect, and nurture face-to-face relationships and communication, we must do the same in Cyberspace. We need to conduct ourselves in civil and constructive ways to encourage satisfying, meaningful, and productive personal and professional visceral and virtual relationships.

In summary, we can encourage communal, civil, and reciprocal discussions when we do the some of the following:

Use friendly appropriate greetings.

Avoid contributing ideas prematurely.

Use third or first person.

Avoid "you" messages.

Respectfully acknowledge others and their ideas.

Use descriptive words to clarify thoughts and feelings to compensate
for the lack of visual and auditory clues.

Avoid "flaming" (posting hostile or negative messages or responses).

Avoid attacking another person or their ideas.

Think about how others may respond to messages before sending them.

Paraphrase or repeat ideas or words of others before responding.

Communicate support and care for others.

Give appropriate praise.

Use respectful, congenial closings.

References

Aphek, E. (2001) < Aphekdr@netvision.net.il> (2001, January). Kamrat :The story of a Virtual multicultural learning community in Israel. < tripathi@amadeus.statistik.uni-dortmund.de> (2001, January).

Levy, P. (1998). Becoming virtual: Reality in the digital age. (R.B. Bononno, Trans.) New York: Plenum Publishing.

Palloff, R, Pratt, K. (1999) Building learning communities in Cyberspace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Rheingold, H. (2000) The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. Cambridge: MIT Press.