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New Dimensions in Computers and Composition Studies

Image of A Rhetoric of Electronic Communities book coverImage of A Rhetoric of Electronic Communities

Tharon W. Howard

"Howard's combining of postmodern theory and electronic networks takes him to discussions central to composition studies today: concerns about community, citizenship, the role of literacy in democratic societies, and the part that electronic networks might play in changing configurations of discourse."

Janet Carey Eldred
University of Kentucky

"Howard undertakes to discover the nature of the 'community' established in an electronic discussion group. After setting the stage with a careful review of the literature on 'community,' and after locating computer-mediated communication in the context of a range of existing communication practices, Howard analyzes the discourse that was 'Purtopoi,' an electronic discussion group he helped manage. He argues that electronic discourse may be best seen as an extension of Burke's parlor: an electronic 'virtual house' with many rooms and many conversations. Participants in this electronic discourse are free to come and go, leaving one conversation to join another.

"The work is informed by a carefully-wrought theoretical frame. It is also entertainingly and authoritatively written."

Charles Moran
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Tharon W. Howard teaches in the Professional Communications Program at Clemson University.