Online Communities, Self-Silencing, and Lost Rhetorical Spaces

Kinney, Kelly. "Online Communities, Self-Silencing, and Lost Rhetorical Spaces." Kairos. 6.1. 2001. http://english.ttu.edu/Kairos/6.1/binder.html?coverweb/kinney/index.html
(25 September 2009).

Kelly Kenney’s article discusses the ways in which “feminist notions of community can open rhetorical spaces for women to speak and be heard” (Screen 1). She also discusses the ways in which technology has open up new opportunities for women and others to contribute in the online classroom; at the same time, Kinney cautions online instructors about reinscribing traditional hierarchies in the classroom. She suggests that the instructor must initiate and teach a new approach to community and collaboration in the classroom. She presents her ideas through the discussion of a student electronic list, “[complicating] conceptions of community and discourse practice in the use of computer-mediated discussion groups” (Screen 1). Kinney looks at gender and discusses gendered responses in a forum that boasted a 4:1 female-to-male ratio, something she claims makes her study unique.

Kinney’s assertion roughly half-way through her article that, “While student-centered pedagogies have helped to change the shape of traditional classroom discussions, some still are guided by masculine conceptions of dialogue and community” really hit home for me (Screen 2). As someone who approaches pedagogy from a feminist and collaborative standpoint, I hate to think that I may be perpetuating traditionally masculine forms of communication and relationships and ignoring other forms. In this sense, I find Kinney’s article enlightening and educational. Kinney critiques collaborative pedagogy along the lines that it promotes a linear, singular way of approaching problems, something that is hierarchical and masculine. It does not allow for multiple voices one consensus has been reached. I am familiar with this argument against collaborative pedagogy, and also the argument that we should be more accepting of conflict within the classroom instead of consensus, an assertion that necessarily calls the role of the instructor and his or her authority into question, another issue not directly taken up by Kinney, which raises interesting questions about gender and the classroom. Also interesting is Kinney’s assertion that the masculine way of communicating prevalent in the list is carried over by women used to traditional classroom dynamics. This argument has an interesting connection to “The Anthropology of Online Communities” which also states that we negotiate online communal spaces in basically the same way we negotiate traditional communal spaces, again a testament to the interdisciplinary nature of this topic.

Another particularly useful and interesting point of Kinney’s is that the forum actually began by presenting more typical female methods of communication, but ended up presenting an adversarial male/hierarchal tone that alienated some female participants. I have noted this in our own ENGL 8121 online forum, and I find this interesting to my exploration of the topic of community in the online classroom. Additionally, I believe the phenomenon Kinney discusses in terms of the tone of the forum is an interesting one pertinent to the Strain, Fore, and Moloney article, as well as to the Black article: gender was largely minimized or left out of these discussions of community, save for a discussion of feminist research methods in Strain, Fore, and Moloney. I am probably most interested in Kinney’s article of all the sources I have read as I believe her discussion of cooperation as an alternative to collaboration is one that offers an interesting link to electronic pedagogy itself. It also presents a further analysis of opportunities for postmodern pedagogy in the online classroom. If anything, I wish Kinney had discussed in more detail typical male and typical female methods of communication for those of us who are still becoming familiar with the literature on this topic.