Much popular discussion around the topic of facilitating on-line groups seems to centre around issues such as increasing computing expertise and access to IT facilities and resources (Hallam & Murray, 1998). Previous research has demonstrated that E-mail use per se is predicted by perceptions of its usefulness and the presence of sector critical mass, but perceptions of its ease of use appear to have little significant impact (Pepper et al., 1999). Clearly, access to technology is a vital component for encouraging participation in networks, but it is not the only component (e.g. Ranerup, 1998; Symon, 1999). Much has been written about the potential benefits for communities of using electronic networks (e.g. Schuler, 1996; Thompson et al., 1991; van der Besselaar, 1998), yet despite attempts to communicate these to users, participation in electronic networks remains erratic. Below we present some preliminary research findings which suggest that there are a number of contextual issues which may impact upon people’s desire to participate in networking activities and the outcomes they value from such activities.

The study was conducted through the use of semi-structured interviews with nine discussion list subscribers. These were drawn from the membership of a set of on-line discussion lists, and were contacted by email or telephone in the first instance to see if they wished to participate. The nine participants came from small business and voluntary organisations within a small geographical region, and included a city farm, a community theatre organisation, an outdoor pursuits trust, an art gallery, a digital arts research organisation, a information provider, a solicitors’ firm, an IT strategist and an Internet consultant. All of the interviewees were involved in partnership or collaborative work of some kind, and all worked with local community groups, funding bodies, clients and associates. A copy of the interview schedule is available upon request.

All the participants were members of varying numbers and types of on-line discussion lists, including community groups, art and culture lists, email user support lists, technical lists, and lists aimed at supporting the local small business community and voluntary sector. The reasons for joining discussion lists were varied, but some users had "fallen in" to becoming list members, with little prior expectation of what they might gain from the lists. They were thus adopting a "try it and see" approach. There was also a perception, particularly among those from the charitable organisations, that it was good to get involved at an early stage in order to be able to fully exploit the technology when a critical mass of users was achieved in their own sector. On the other hand, some users had been very strategic in their use of discussion lists, choosing carefully to belong only to those which were closely related to their own work.

The results suggest that a distinction can be drawn between "active" and "passive" users of on-line discussion lists. Active users are those who regularly post messages to the lists, while passive users are those who prefer to listen to what others are saying and contribute only rarely, if at all (popularly known as "lurking"). Only three of the interviewees were active discussion list participants, and often posted messages to lists to publicise their own work or take part in debates. These were the IT strategist, the digital arts research manager, and the solicitor. The other six were passive users, who often found it informative or interesting to read what others were saying on the list, but at the same time were quick to delete messages that had no obvious relevance or interest for them. Interestingly, many interviewees felt that this was perfectly acceptable, as they recognised that the lists had diverse membership, which resulted in different "threads" of discussion, and that not all subscribers wished to discuss the same things.

A number of differences between the active and passive users emerged from this study. Interestingly, all of the interviewees had extensive IT facilities either in their organisation or at home, but had differing levels of list use. This suggests that existing access to IT facilities appears not to determine the extent of list participation by itself.

Two of the passive users, the Internet consultant and the art gallery manager, did not contribute frequently to the discussion lists they belonged to as they felt this was not worthwhile for them. However, this was for very different reasons. The art gallery staff did not feel comfortable interacting with people via an electronic medium, and were wary of the ease with which people could be misinformed if the information they posted to the list went out-of-date. By contrast, the Internet consultant felt that the list he belonged to was often too general to be of direct use to him, and he often found looking up information on the Web to be more valuable than asking a question to the discussion list.

Other passive users had very focused and targeted ways of using the lists. They valued membership to pick up useful snippets of information, such as recommended websites, but only where they could see direct relevance to their own work. Also, there was a strong perception that there was always a "core" of regular and enthusiastic list subscribers, but that most list members were not keen to participate frequently.

Linked to this was the "flavour" of the list in question. Some lists were regarded as being very open and easy to contribute to, while others were seen as less informal and only for those "in the know". Also, it appears a list could be many things to many people. One list the interviewees discussed was a source of technical support to some subscribers, but to others was more about matters of principle, ethics, and issues and concerns in the local area. It seems that users have some perception of "belonging" to a list in terms of the kind of information it contains and the kind of other organisations and people who belong to it as well. Furthermore, subscribers could "belong" to different sub-sets of list members, and participate in very different discussions, on the same list.

Finally, we turn to the regular active list contributors. These were the IT strategist, the solicitor and the digital arts research manager, although the fact that the IT strategist contributed to lists to a lesser extent than the other two again demonstrates that participation in discussion lists is not linked solely to IT access and expertise. These users found discussion lists to be an interesting source of information and a good way to disseminate their own work. Interestingly these people were members of the largest number of lists, participating in discussions ranging from business and work to local history and community issues. It is unclear whether membership of lots of lists leads to increased contribution levels, or whether increased contribution leads to a greater desire to participate in lots of lists; we suggest it may be a mixture of both these processes.

The majority of interviewees felt that membership of on-line discussion lists was a useful way to get information, both on a general level and occasionally in a more targeted way. For instance, many members appreciated receiving information about local issues in their area, but also liked to find out "industry gossip" in their own field. Another outcome was the availability of technical assistance from other subscribers. Many users had received help with software problems and advice on computer purchases from other subscribers. Also, many members got something from the lists on a personal level. For instance, the IT strategist found he could stay in touch with people when he couldn’t speak to them on the phone, and had also found out some interesting things about the social history of his local area.

In addition, some users had been able to follow things up "off-list". For example, some had seen conferences or seminars advertised on a list, which they had subsequently attended and found useful. There were also examples of people making new contacts and setting up new partnerships as a result of discussion lists. The outdoor pursuits trust director had become the director of a second community organisation after making contact with that organisation over a discussion list. Others found the discussion lists to be supportive in stimulating business relationships they already had. For example, the solicitors’ firm had set up a seminar programme as a joint venture with another local organisation as a result of their conversations on a discussion list.

The extent to which the study participants felt they would use discussion lists in the future mirrored their existing levels of use very closely. Thus, those making little use of them now expected to have little use for them in the future, and those who contributed a lot now expected to see the most growth in their use of on-line discussion lists.

The occasional list contributors all shared the opinion that they would participate in discussions more if they could belong to on-line discussion groups which more closely mirrored their interests and specific areas of activity. The main barrier here was perceived to be "critical mass" in their own specialist field. However, they all shared a perception that such critical mass was building and it was therefore a good thing to get involved with on-line discussion lists early on, so that they would already be familiar with the technology and list protocols by the time that critical mass was achieved.

Five key messages can be drawn from this exploratory study:

1. Subscribers do not have to send lots of messages to an on-line discussion list in order to be making use of it, and may simply value the opportunity to "listen" to what others are saying. This suggests that numbers of messages posted is not a clear indicator of how useful a subscriber perceives a list to be.
2. Also, some list members value membership of lists even when the majority of messages exchanged are not relevant to them, as they can pick up the few messages that are of interest to them.
3. There is no easy way of determining whether passive users, who do not make regular contributions, are just listening to information and finding it useful, or whether they find no benefit or interest in the list and have simply not unsubscribed. It is likely that there is a mixture of both these processes occurring.
4. Use of on-line discussion lists does not appear to be related to sector, or to existing use of IT and on-line services. All the study participants had easy access to a variety of IT facilities and resources, but did not necessarily participate in electronic networking to a great extent.
5. A key point to note is the "flavour" of different discussion lists. Some lists were perceived to be very "friendly" and informal, while others were seen as far less accessible. Also, people did not feel it was necessary for them to participate in all the "threads" of discussion which were occurring on the lists.

In summary, it appears that the factors which encourage users to participate in on-line discussions are complex and dynamic, and are by no means limited to technological issues. Perceived usefulness appears to be an important factor facilitating use of discussion lists and, as mentioned previously, use of E-mail generally (Pepper et al. 1999), but the results presented here suggest that contextual variables also have strong influences.

A key factor influencing these users’ desires to participate in on line discussions appears to be the "flavour", or "atmosphere", of the list in question, and is in line with previous work suggesting that access to communication technology cannot in itself create a context for participation in discussions (Symon, 1999). This has important implications for research into on-line communities. The potential benefits of on-line networking are widely known, but these do not appear to encourage participation by themselves. Research in this field should therefore investigate the contextual reasons why users choose to participate in electronic networks.

One way of approaching this may be to involve community members more closely in the design and management of discussion lists, and indeed in the design of community networking initiatives more generally. This serves the purpose of placing responsibility for the list in the hands of its users, who will then develop and use it in a manner which best suits their circumstances (Clegg et al., 1999). Of the lists used by the participants in this study, the one where most efforts have been made to elicit from subscribers what they want the list to be like is far more active and features a wider range of discussion topics than other lists, where a similar degree of effort has not been made.

At the same time, systems developers and list providers may find it informative that many users consider it useful to listen to what others are saying and take from it what they can, without necessarily contributing themselves. There seems to be, then, a high degree of selectivity in the ways in which people use on-line discussion lists. This is backed up by the fact that many people felt they would actively participate in on-line discussion lists to a greater extent in the future, when more people in their own sector were on-line and they could exchange more relevant information and views more regularly. Research into virtual communities might therefore wish to bear in mind that users value quality of information, and wish to expand current efforts in researching information needs.

To conclude, this study has taken an exploratory approach to studying the use of discussion lists within communities of users, and identified some interesting findings for future research to build upon. As the study is based only upon a small sample, we do not claim that these findings are either representative or exhaustive. However, the in-depth nature of the interviews and the wide range of users studied can give confidence that we have achieved a good indication of how some users may view on-line discussion lists. Thus, these interviews with actual network users can serve to enlighten the debate about community networking, and suggest ways forward for research in this exciting new field.

Clegg, C., Older-Gray, M., & Waterson, P. E. (1999) The "Charge of the Byte Brigade" and a socio-technical response. To appear in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.

Hallam, E. & Murray, I. R. (1998) World wide web community networks and the voluntary sector. The Electronic Library, 16, 3, pp. 183 – 189

Pepper, K., Clegg, C. & Mullarkey, S. (1999) Net gains and losses: Internet use in small businesses. Working paper, Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.

Schuler, D. (1996) New community networks: wired for change. New York: ACM Press

Symon, G. (1999) New Communication Technologies and the network organisation. Paper presented at the British Psychological Society’s Occupational Psychology Conference 1999, Blackpool