beyond teamersterville
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Jack Turner
COMM 605
Dr. HopsonMarch 5, 2009
Beyond Teamsterville: Changing Places, Changing Minds
Philipsens Places for Speaking in Teamsterville demonstrates that locations
and spaces have symbolic meanings that encourage or suppress certain types of
communication and relationships. For example, the street corner in Teamsterville
provides a place for young men and adolescents to share language, values, cultural
norms, and to negotiate identity. Discourse in this place preserves and maintains part of
the culture of the Teamsterville neighborhood (2002).
Phillipsen indicates that researchers can use a place as a heuristic location to
discover and explore a communitys shared language, personal and group relationships,
and cultural identity (2002). According to Cassell and Tversky, the heuristic location does
not have to exist within physical boundaries, and they provide intriguing research that
supports their claim. Cassell and Tversky theorize that interpersonal networks, social
identity, a sense of belonging, and by extension a shared culture, can be constructed on
the Internet (2006).
This essay compares the signs of community and cultural development between
Philipsens Teamsterville and a community constructed on the Internet. It describes
recent research by Cassell and Tversky that demonstrates the salience of mostly textual
communication in the construction of an online community (2002, 2006). An extension of
cultural construction theory is discussed in which it is proposed that online communities
can transcend into the real world through discourse. Further, the construction of a
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culture of reconciliation developed cooperatively on the Internet between Palestinians
and Israelis is proposed.
Constructing Culture and Crossing Boundaries
Can values and goals established in an online community extend beyond the
Internet and converge with the physical, or real, world? The concept that discourse and
language create and maintain communities and cultural values is used here to promote the
idea that online cultural values might transcend the boundary between the virtual and
real world. How important to community and culture are physical space, physical
context, physical proximity, and non-verbal communication? In this regard, Cassell and
Tversky have demonstrated that community and cultural construction can exist in an
Internet group organized around common social goals, electronic social networks, and
electronic communication (2006).
Cassell and Tversky analyze a global community of international young adults
called The Junior Summit that constructs a unique community and culture over a period
of three months. Casell and Tversky show that participants self-construct their
community by systematically establishing cultural norms, creating a common language,
and fulfilling individuals needs for inclusion and respect. In a five year follow-up, they
also show that relationships from the Internet community have extended into the daily
lives of many participants (2006).
Formation of Culture Online
The Junior Summit took place in 1998 after thousands of applications for
participation in the three-month project were processed from all over the world. About
one thousand young people participated, mostly 14 to 16 year olds and fairly equal in
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gender. The participants came from the cultures of North and South America, the
Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. The purpose of the summit was to connect and
empower motivated youth from all around the world to make their voices heard on issues
concerning young people (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).
The Junior Summit developed personal and working relationships through mostly
online textual communication. Signs of community construction began to emerge within
weeks. Cassell and Tversky say that participants used the pronoun I much less the more
they worked and communicated together. Conversely, the pronoun we was used much
more as the community established itself. A significant development was the change in
the meaning of we. Participants at first used we in reference to their personal culture,
but later they used it in reference to their online community (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).
Similarities to Teamsterville
Similar to Teamsterville youth, Junior Summit members expressed a great sense
of support and a strong sense of identity connected to their online community.
Participants described The Junior Summit as a big extended family, and a united
global network of people all over the world. This strong sense of belonging was reported
consistently by Junior Summit members (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).
Both Junior Summit members and Teamsterville residents nurture, maintain,
and protect their culture through discourse and established boundaries. Junior Summit
members have established certain boundaries to protect their speaking and language, but
they are not physical boundaries. They are areas of behavior, speaking topics, and
language use that become boundaries which serve to define the Junior Summit
community and culture (2006 Philipsen, 2002; Cassell and Tversky).
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Beyond Teamsterville
Self-selection is an important difference between Teamsterville and the Junior
Summit community. Teamsterville community members are basically born into the
community, or they are outsiders eventually accepted by the community. Self-selection is
minimal, and social pressures against leaving the culture of the Teamsterville
neighborhood are enormous (Cassell and Tversky, 2006; Philipsen, 2002).
Junior Summit community members have been allowed a greater measure of free
will in their selection of community and culture than residents of Teamsterville. All
Junior Summit members are volunteers with a preconceived social goal, which is
working together on youth-related international issues (Cassell and Tversky, 2006). The
fact that they are initially bound together across many social, economic, and geographic
boundaries by this commitment is a remarkable part of their community history. In this
context, individual identities and personal goals may have superseded the participants
original culture. Free will and self-selection may have provided focal points for a new
cultural identification based on certain cross-culture similarities.
Another unique feature of this online community is having an equal voice
regardless of age, gender, heritage, and original culture. Equity in development of
discourse content is also noted. Even though different communication channels may have
existed within leadership roles and responsibilities, 84 percent of participants have stated
that they always felt heard by the community. Interestingly, females have used more
emotional language than males at the beginning of the project, but males have closed the
gap by the end. Discourse about the future, a subject that has been associated with
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older community members, is exhibited by younger community members by the end of
the project (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).
Transcending Boundaries
The Junior Summit has demonstrated that places for speaking can transcend
physical space. The emotional significance of a place exists in the minds and shared
discourse of people who identify particular qualities to a place. That place can be where a
confluence of shared values, beliefs, and goals is identified, supported, and maintained.
This confluence can result in a constructed community that interconnects people from
diverse backgrounds in a meaningful way.
Results from Cassell and Tversky suggest that frequent dialogue among multi-
cultural people in cyberspace can develop a place with a unique culture, language, and
norms and values. A type of individual and cultural identity can arise from patterns of
shared speech behavior, constructive relationships, perceived commonalities, and
perceived boundaries. Through repetition of these patterns over time, a cultural history
can be created (2006).
Real Opportunities
Assume that cultural values and identity are dependent on language and discourse.
It follows that an online culture can translate itself into the real, physical world by way
of shared discourse. If peaceful coexistence between members of formerly oppositional
cultures can be constructed within a cyberspace community, it may be possible for this
relationship to cross over into the real world.
Some researchers are already testing online intercultural interactions to see if they
have a significant effect in the real world. Stover has developed an online simulation
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for negotiating conflicts in the Middle East available to anybody in the world who has
access to the Internet. Participants must do a great deal of research and educate
themselves on Middle Eastern history, culture, and current political situations. No data on
real world influences from Stovers project are available at the time of this writing
(Stover, 2008).
Yablon and Katz used a combination of online communication and face-to-face
talks to encourage empathy between Jewish and Arab Israeli students. Adult mentors with
conflict resolution skills worked with the students and stressed societal values of
understanding, equality, tolerance and peace. Concurrently, the students communicated
interculturally through a daily online chat room. The results of the study indicated
increased empathy between Jewish and Arab students (2001).
The results of Yablon and Katzs study suggest that a higher purpose beyond
cultural beliefs might be facilitated by the bonds of an online community. Such a higher
purpose may be seen as a higher power dwelling within shared human bonds of
understanding, trust, and fellowship. The power of these bonds becomes a natural force,
its energy derived from the strength of the whole community. It is a higher power that can
inspire the courage and tenacity needed for reconciliation.
Conclusion
Beyond Place As We Know It
The significance of places for talking can be appreciated by changing the context
of place. We can explore new regions of cultural communication and cultural
construction by thinking of familiar places for talking, such as street corners and coffee
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shops, as a starting point. We can, for example, explore the possibilities and opportunities
for reconciling cultural hostilities in a peace community constructed on the Internet.
In cyberspace, where physical, social, and cultural boundaries can be more easily
transcended, it is possible to build a level playing field for all voices to be heard. For
example, opportunities exist for Palestinians to speak with Israelis in a place that can
encourage, and even to a degree enforce, open dialogue without the threat of physical
violence. Repetition of regular communication in this arena might eventually construct a
shared culture based on constructing a peaceful coexistence in the real world.
Theoretically, a peace-building culture consisting of Palestinians and Israelis can
be constructed on the Internet and translated into the physical domain. This process can
be viewed as a contextual change that brings potential power to a message of
reconciliation. This potential power might influence message acceptance by the most
important participants in the peace process: Those who are anchored in the physical and
emotional past, but are willing to open the border into a different future.
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References
Cassell, J, Tversky D (2006). The language of online intercultural community formation.
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,10. 2, (January 2005).
International Communication Association. Published Online: 23 Jun 2006.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.mutex.gmu.edu/journal/120837937/issue.
Retrieved February 16, 2009
Philipsen, G. (2002). Places for speaking in teamsterville.Readings in Intercultural
Communication: Experiences and Contexts 2ndEdition, Martin, J, Nakayama, T,
Flores, L (Ed.), McGraw Hill, Boston. 192-202.
Stover, William (2008). Information technology and international relations: Using online,
interactive simulations to transcend time, space, and attitudes. Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, San Jose
Marriott, San Jose, California, Feb 22, 2008 Online.
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