Electronic debates
Cityfolk watching a parade, not conversing with one another
Two members conversing with one another in the virtual world Second Life (Image copyright 2003, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
We have begun to experiment to see whether electronic communications can mediate real encounters with people that are truly other. But Richard Sennett is skeptical about such endeavors.
Those watching television's glowing box cannot see each other. It's sometimes said that the Internet might be a new space of democracy. But screen communications emphasize denotative statements and short messages; to exit from painful confrontation, you need only click a mouse. Easy, quick decisions are encouraged by such conditions, not the difficult sorting out that requires time and commitment. Sennett 1999, 71-72
To my mind, Sennett is making the mistake of equating a technology's promise with its current abilities. Still, he is correct that "difficult sorting out" in dialogue demands habits of interaction and concentrated discussion that current media do not encourage. On the other hand, attending a town meeting or committee can convince us that good habits of interaction and concentrated discussion are often lacking in face to face discussion. When the Net can offer enough bandwidth for concentration and expression, a "place for discipline, focus, and duration" will not necessarily need spatial proximity.
It is interesting to speculate what might be the style of discussion for people raised not on TV's brief sound bites but on computer games' long concentration combined with constant challenges, who are used to the integration of multiple variables and overlapping lines of simultaneous action.