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Lurking in Multicultural Online Educational Forums: “I Wasn't Invited to the Party”

Lurking in Multicultural Online Educational Forums: “I Wasn't Invited to the Party”

Stephen Bax, Mark Pegrum
ISBN13: 9781605668741|ISBN10: 1605668745|ISBN13 Softcover: 9781616922269|EISBN13: 9781605668758
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-874-1.ch010
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MLA

Bax, Stephen, and Mark Pegrum. "Lurking in Multicultural Online Educational Forums: “I Wasn't Invited to the Party”." Interaction in Communication Technologies and Virtual Learning Environments: Human Factors, edited by Angela T. Ragusa, IGI Global, 2010, pp. 145-159. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-874-1.ch010

APA

Bax, S. & Pegrum, M. (2010). Lurking in Multicultural Online Educational Forums: “I Wasn't Invited to the Party”. In A. Ragusa (Ed.), Interaction in Communication Technologies and Virtual Learning Environments: Human Factors (pp. 145-159). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-874-1.ch010

Chicago

Bax, Stephen, and Mark Pegrum. "Lurking in Multicultural Online Educational Forums: “I Wasn't Invited to the Party”." In Interaction in Communication Technologies and Virtual Learning Environments: Human Factors, edited by Angela T. Ragusa, 145-159. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-874-1.ch010

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Abstract

Through an examination of the practice of lurking, or vicarious participation, in online educational environments, this chapter shows that online interaction is affected by practical, social and cultural issues which extend well beyond the technological and educational questions typically addressed in discussions of online tools. It focuses on the first phase of the Third Space in Online Discussion project, a set of asynchronous international online forums in which a multicultural cohort of language teachers took part in 2007. After a discussion of the literature related to lurking, both in non-educational and educational environments, the authors present our own data on lurking in a small-scale but in-depth study. They go on to elucidate some of the practical, social, cultural and linguistic reasons for lurking and show that these operate together, rather than individually, to produce lurking behaviour. They conclude by indicating the strategies they adopted to encourage more active involvement in a later phase of the online educational project.

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