Electronic Chat: Social Issues on Internet Relay Chat

This paper discusses social issues raised by interaction on 'Internet Relay Chat', the synchronous computer-mediated communication system available on the Internet. It is shown that the structure of IRC forces users to deconstruct many of the cultural tools that form the basis of more conventional systems of interaction. Unable to rely on physical cues as a channel of meaning, users of IRC have developed ways of substituting for or bypassing them. New systems of cultural significance have developed, along with methods of enforcing that new hegemony. These new systems of meaning and social control define the usership of IRC as constituting a unique cultural group.