Introduction
"Cyberspace: A common mental geography, built, in turn by consensus and revolution, canon and experiment; a territory swarming with data and lies, with mind stuff and memories of nature, with a million voices and two million eyes in a silent, invisible concert of enquiry, deal-making, dream sharing and simple beholding." (Benedikt, 1991, p 2)
"Cyberspace", a term coined by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer (1984), has been used to describe the new, imaginary places where humans communicate, made possible by recent technological developments in CMC. Cyberspace is constituted by a global computer network called the Internet. Like other communications technologies before ( telegraph, telephone, television, etc ( the new array of communications technologies which constitute cyberspace have immense consequences for human interaction. This thesis explores one dimension of these consequences ( the formation of interpersonal ties ( in one type of CMC: Internet Relay Chat (IRC), a multi- user, real-time program. The emergence of these new sites for human communication provides space for 'cyberfusion' ( the development of human relationships in cyberspace.
The Internet began originally as ARPANET, a computer network set up by the United States Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the United States Department of Defence. The network linked two universities in the United States in a bid to facilitate research and communication. Over time more educational institutions joined the network. In 1983 ARPANET was split into two networks: ARPANET for research and MILNET for military use. The research arm grew even further, adding government and commercial groups to the network. With the advent of satellite communications, similar networks all over the world were linked, forming the Internet (Reid, 1991). Now, in 1994, there are over 20 million users connected to the Internet around the world (The Australian, 14 June, 1994).
Users of the Internet can communicate in a variety of ways: electronic mail (email), usenet or network news, talk, Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs), and IRC. IRC, which is the focus of this thesis, was a program developed by Jakko Oikarinen in 1988 which enabled many users to communicate with each other at once in real-time, something not possible with existing programs. Within IRC there are channels which act like rooms in which discussions take place. These channels (both public and private) are necessary to divide the 5000 plus users that are on IRC at any one time. Anyone can join a public channel to participate in the discussion, however private messages can also be exchanged between two users which are unavailable to anyone else (Poon, 1993, p 65-67).
The potential of the Internet is such that it allows the rapid exchange of information between people all over the world. It is frequently argued that the Internet, more than any other medium, makes possible free, open and equal access to information. If kept free from government regulation and censorship, this will facilitate steps to greater global 'democracy'. This belief is best seen in the writings of Kapor (1993, 1994) from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation which is actively working to keep the Internet an open system.
The Internet also allows communication between people who would not previously have been in contact. People from all around the world, it is claimed, have the opportunity to engage in conversation and form relationships without the barriers of ethnicity, nationality, class, religion, gender and age, enhancing the possibility of global 'community'. (Rheingold, 1994; Reid, 1991, 1993)
Grand claims for the democratic and communal potential of the Internet are, however, often made without recourse to a detailed analysis of the new forms of interpersonal communication that came about with forms of CMC such as IRC. All communication on the Internet, for example, is textual and the people communicating are invisible to each other. This means that communication is very different to that which takes place on a FTF level. The implications of this are such that the ways in which people communicate, relate to each other and fuse together in relationships are altered. While these implications have been investigated on a larger scale, looking at issues of community (Rheingold, 1994), the same implications must be looked at on an interpersonal level.
New technologies which have the potential to reshape communication are, nevertheless, always introduced into social contexts with existing forms of human relationships, values and meanings. This thesis seeks to explore the ways this medium of communication alters the way people communicate, and yet also how it is that relationship formation in this medium on an interpersonal level reproduces aspects of FTF communication by users adapting the medium to their needs. The users of IRC in this adaptation develop and maintain the many types of relationships that are present in FTF communication from enemies to friends to lovers.
A social interaction perspective will be adopted to look at interpersonal relationships, using theories that address the formation of relationships and their subsequent development. In particular, social penetration theory developed by Altman and Taylor (1973) and an attraction theory developed by Levinger and Snoek (1972) will be used in conjunction with one another to understand the process of relationship formation. The literature surrounding CMC will also be investigated to understand the impact that this type of communication has had. In particular, social presence theory, developed by Short, Williams and Christie (1976), will be used to account for the changes brought about by the medium of communication.
In chapter one, the two areas of relationship formation and CMC will be outlined. This will be followed by a critical analysis of the three theories which when merged will form a suitable framework and method for the investigation of relationship formation on IRC. In this merger, three major issues emerge which will be discussed in the following chapters. Chapter two argues that while the medium alters the ways and contexts of communication, users of IRC have developed adaptations of verbal and Nonverbal Communication (NVC) as well as creating a new context in which to communicate. Once the means of communication has been established, chapter three will outline the problem of 'self' inherent in the two relationship formation theories by pointing to the dramaturgical theory by Goffman (1969) and the social selves theory as presented by Burkitt (1991) to best account for the problems of presenting and perceiving an accurate understanding of the self on IRC. In arguing for a social understanding of the self, it will be seen how issues of power and gender are important in the investigation of relationship formation.
It is hoped that through this discussion, a better understanding of how relationships form in a computer mediated environment will be obtained.