This articlecompares two extended interactions that took place recently on the Internet, one from a recreational Internet Relay Chat (IRC)channel, and the other from an academic listservdiscussion group. The two interactions exhibit similar gender dynamic s, which can be characterized as harassment of female by male participants. This harassment takes different forms, in keeping with the possibilities inherent in the two modes of computer-mediated communication. Whereas female participants on IRC are kicked off the channel, in the discussion group harassers must rely exclusively on language to intimidate and silence. This ª rhetoric of harassmentº crucially invokes libertarian principles of freedom of expression, constructing women’s resistance as ª censorship.º A rhetorical analysis of the two harassment episodes thus sheds light on the means used to construct and maintain asymmetrical gender and power dynamic s in different modes of CMC.

Introduction Keegan [1] declares that `Without a medium of communication the concept "distance education" would not be an educational process...both synchronous and asynchronous media are viable means of communication for distance education providing that they allow two-way communication' (p. 118). Discussing quality and access in distance education from theoretical constructs, Garrison [2] states that the `concern for quality in distance education has identified an emerging paradigm based upon two-way communication as a necessary and central component of an educational transaction' (p. 17). In other words, interactive two-way communication is the critical component in distance education. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) systems have been used as media of communication rather than for their technological properties. Examining CMC systems requires examining an interactive communication model. Each communicative act has a source/sender who originates the me

In the early years of CMC research (which is to say up until very recently), those of us researching CMC had no choice but to make up rules and procedures as we went along. Quite simply, the phenomena we were investigating hadn't been in existence long enough yet for others to have paved the way with methodologies, ethical guidelines, and the like. Being among the first brought with it a sense of power and exhilaration, but at the same time uncertainty at times on how best to proceed. Thus it was with a vague sense of relief that I welcomed the first suggestions of how to cite e-mail messages in scholarly publications, how to cite electronic journal publications on one's curriculum vitae, and other such practical matters. And I especially looked forward to the day when sound advice would become available as to whether (and when) one should use participants' real names when citing electronic messages as data. This is a matter of special concern to me as a linguist, since my research focuses on the language used in electronic interactions, and involves quoting portions of actual messages verbatim. The decision I made in my first CMC publications was to use pseudonyms or avoid mention of names rather than revealing the actual identities of my data sources, in part because the theoretical orientation of my research is critical of the language patterns used by some participants. My intention has been to respect the privacy of individual participants, while preserving the academic freedom to criticize. But is this defensible on ethical grounds? Now, at last, two sets of proposals related to this issue have been publicly advanced. Unfortunately, however, the two proposals aim to establish guidelines that are mutually contradictory in crucial respects. Further, neither appears to have envisioned the possibility of CMC research that is linguistic in focus or critical in nature.