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Note: Web Lab is solely responsible for this page. Neither PBS Online, nor PBS member stations have expressed agreement or disagreement with the ideas expressed below.


The Dilemma of the Invisible Man Culture


We believe that people with divergent backgrounds and beliefs -- given the time and space to connect in a safe environment -- will find ways to explore their differences and learn from each other, emerging with a deeper understanding of themselves and the world.

Web Lab has always been interested in generating dialogues across differences and equally concerned about the scarcity of effective models for enabling such dialogues. Although we've had some success in the past, we've never been able to develop a model which was clearly reproducible.

So a year ago we analyzed what we saw occurring on the Web and decided to try experimenting against the grain.

When looking at the standard practices in online asynchronous dialogue (often called "bulletin boards"), we noticed that although Web-based discussions offer participants the ability to connect with each other -- one of the most powerful things any technology can do -- they often create a collection of people with no sense of accountability who leave a series of drive-by postings, rather than contribute to a dialogue or a community. Rather than expecting and planning for the best from participants, most approaches seem more concerned about preventing the worst and, as a result, end up reproducing the very problems they aim to avoid.

Most online discussions are based on several unwritten rules, which tend to hinder the development of conversations and put users in a difficult spot. H.G. Wells wrote in his story "The Invisible Man" about a man who had to negotiate on a daily basis how much of himself would be visible and how much to hide. The Internet puts its users in a similar situation: the more they show, the greater the risk, and the less they show, the shallower the connection. What often results is a group of people who want to see but not be seen, ultimately permitting most of us to see nothing. We refer to this as the dilemma of the Invisible Man culture.


An Alternative Approach


Once we identified the lynchpins that held together and reproduced this Invisible Man culture, we experimented with what would happen when we pulled those pins out.

  • Instead of a dialogue which is so large members can't keep track of each other and know who's there, the Web Lab Dialogues organize groups that are small enough that members can actually tell who isn't there.

  • Instead of a dialogue in which participants experience different start and end points, so people are constantly arriving and leaving as if through a revolving door, participants in a Web Lab Dialogue Group start together and come to closure together.

  • Instead of a dialogue in which anonymity is treated as if it were as sacred as the First Amendment, the Web Lab Dialogues lower the level of anonymity to raise the level of accountability, while still preserving a level of safety and trust that online anonymity can generate.

  • Instead of dialogues with moderators or facilitators driving the dialogue and defining what's appropriate for discussion, the Web Lab Dialogues take the administrators out of the dialogue and let each group take ownership over their own conversation, allowing group dynamics to let natural leaders emerge and encouraging self-moderated groups.

We first tried this approach in the summer of 1998, when we created the P.O.V. Salon to encourage discussions about the independent films shown on the public TV series P.O.V. Although, as a first time experiment, the process was flawed in many ways, the impact on active participants was so powerful that it changed the way we thought about the possibilities of online dialogue and the role it can play in people's lives.

A few months later, in the fall of 1998, we refined the process with Reality Check, a unique set of dialogues about the impeachment process that ran for four months.

It turned out the effects were not only reproducible, but inspiring:

  • Members with conflicting opinions communicated across their differences and often came to respect those with whom they disagreed.

  • Personal attacks were rare, constructive criticism and appreciation abounded, and members generally treated each other exceptionally well and with a thoughtful frankness. When conflicts did erupt, the group dynamics were usually strong enough that protagonists not only accepted responsibility and apologized, but learned something in the process, without Web Lab's intervention.

  • Some members reported the experience changed the way they communicated both on and off line, whether developing improved listening skills or strengthening their ability to speak their mind and defend their beliefs.

  • Active members grew remarkably loyal and the site became, as they say in marketing, very "sticky."

  • Members developed enough trust to share deeply personal aspects of their lives and looked to one another for advice and support.

  • As members grew to know each other, each group identified topics of common interest and took their dialogue in directions different from the other groups.

In May, 1999 the MacArthur Foundation and the Markle Foundation provided funding for an outside evaluation of Reality Check (now underway). Their funding will also make possible a report on the ALS dialogues.

And on July 5, 1999, Denise Caruso devoted her widely read New York Times column to "Improving Dialogue on the Internet," and focused primarily on Web Lab's developing model, calling it "one of the most innovative ideas for creating value and relevance in online conversation."

We're not suggesting we've discovered the Holy Grail of online dialogues; there are many questions still to be answered. But we do feel that this model has yielded some remarkable results and we hope not only to keep developing it ourselves, but also to begin to see others experiment with it as well, improving our ability to use this still young medium to bring people together.


How the ALS Dialogues Groups Are Structured


Each group contains a small, set number of conversants, who agree to participate for 3 weeks.

A member can decide how anonymous he or she wants to be, choosing whether to use his/her real name or a screen name, and how much to disclose when writing a short bio and participating in the discussions. But, on the theory that our perspectives are shaped by our backgrounds, participants are encouraged to ground their discussion in what they've learned through personal experience.

Members are encouraged to introduce themselves when their group gets under way, and throughout the discussions, members hold each other accountable for their comments and interactions with others. While the dialogues are available to the public for reading, only members can initiate new topics of conversation or post messages in their group.

There will be three different types of groups available for registrants to join. The first will begin by discussing the topic of bridging differences within relationships. The second will begin by discussing issues raised from the television series, An American Love Story. The third is composed of people under twenty-five (who are free to start with either topic). But of course once each group begins it is up to those individual members to decide where their discussions lead.

For those more interested in observing the dialogues without participating, we have created a Featured Posts section, which highlights some of the most interesting exchanges or perspectives from the active groups.

This structure is built upon our belief that one of a Web site's greatest assets is its users, which is also its greatest sources of content. A site that values this relationship can seek to create an environment online that advocates for and assists the users to develop online relationships and generate content out of what occurs among them.

In the end, this process is the combination of a continually re-evaluated philosophy and the software we have developed with GMD Studios to implement this vision. We believe that neither piece -- approach nor structure -- can work without the other.


Who Created It and How?


Web Lab is a non-profit organization that develops and promotes innovative ways to use the web as a transformative force in people's lives and in society, and catalyzes others to experiment with the medium's potential to serve the public interest. Web Lab partnered with GMD Studios, an Orlando-based new media development company, to develop and automate the software that runs the dialogue groups. Under Web Lab's supervision, a team of people launch new groups and read messages posted to them, respond to email and select the Featured Posts.


The ALS Dialogue: An Experiment


Ultimately, the ALS Dialogue, like the P.O.V. Salon and Reality Check before it, is an on-going experiment in which the people who participate are far more important than the people who created it.

Will it work? We hope so. But the answer is up to you and others who decide to participate.


Further Information


You can learn more about this dialogue technique in the small group dialogue section of WebLab.org.

You can learn more about Reality Check by going to the site at http://www.Reality-Check.org.

You can also read Denise Caruso's New York Times column about the process, or read other articles about its past iterations.





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Copyright © 1999 by Zohe Film Productions and Web Lab