AN EPISODE OF FLAMING: A Creative Narrative†

This article offers a creative narrative that illustrates an episode of flaming in an electronic mail exchange among a small group of communication scholars. The term “flaming” refers to the exchange of emotionally charged, hostile, or insulting messages on computer-mediated communication networks. The narrative here essentially “tells a story” of one episode of flaming, as viewed by one of the participants. The author argues that creative narrative, as a method for the interpretive study of communication and culture, enables a scholarly performance that operates on multiple levels of signification, provides opportunities for engagement at various levels of involvement, and advances a “non-elementalistic” view of the phenomenal world.