Language, Gender, and Internet Discussion Lists

Background:
The area of study I am focusing on is Internet chatgroups. Specifically, I will be looking at whether the gender identifiers and trends studied in class hold up over computer-mediated communication (CMC). One Internet email discussion list was chosen for the study, SacRaves (sacraves@hyperreal.org). SacRaves is an asynchronous chatgroup, meaning it is a discussion list that does not exist in real-time (Crystal, 2001). Messages exist forever and responses can be made at any time. Discussions can travel in any number of directions. The list is centered around electronic music and…