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.

A common phenomenon in online discussion groups is the individual who baits and provokes other group members, often with the result of drawing them into fruitless argument and diverting attention from the stated purposes of the group. This study documents a case in which the members of a vulnerable online community---a feminist web-based discussion forum---are targeted by a "troller" attempting to disrupt their discussion space. We analyze the strategies that make the troller successful and the targeted group largely ineffectual in responding to his attack, as a means to understand how such behavior might be minimized and managed in general. The analysis further suggests that feminist and other non-mainstream online forums are especially vulnerable, in that they must balance inclusive ideals against the need for protection and safety, a tension that can be exploited by disruptive elements to generate intragroup conflict. Running head: SEARCHING FOR SAFETY Key words: CMC, trolling, deception, disruptive behavior, conflict management, feminism Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to: Prof. Susan Herring, SLIS, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405. E-mail: herring@indiana.edu.