Summer 98

A Virtual Conference:

Conference papers were e-mailed directly to participants, all posts went to the moderator, and a daily digest of posts was generated. Each evening, moderators forwarded the digest to all participants. Only moderators could post directly to participants and all material was archived regularly to the conference website.
commposite.uqam.ca/videaz

At the end of each week, moderators circulated brief summaries of the past week’s discussion before sending the new week’s resource material.

The conference operated almost exclusively on volunteer power. The primary goal of the conference was to generate fresh thinking on communication and human rights; however, it was also an experiment in virtual conferencing. By the end, everyone agreed that it had been a successful experiment, but that there were things we might do a bit differently next time.

Gender, Communication and the Internet

In the Gender Perspectives Working Group we explored the seemingly inevitable tension in late capitalism between the competing “rights” of freedom of expression claimed by a large and commercialized media industry and the right to communicate being claimed by citizens, particularly, women. The international nature of this discussion highlighted the need for policy as an ongoing terrain of struggle. The diversity of feminist practices as women around the world struggle to both communicate and be heard, was heartening and humbling. To borrow a phrase from a participant, strategies ranged from “outraged speech to polite listening”. Powerful questions of silencing, of visibility, of speaking anger, of universality and locality, arose within the discussions, and within the very format of the virtual event.

Not surprisingly in a virtual conference, the Internet emerged as a complex, and sometimes double-edged, tool of resistance and political change for women. A number of participants suggested the Internet as a preferred medium of speech for women; one participant described it as a “superb vehicle for mass activism on gender imbalance around the globe”. Others challenged that perspective, citing concerns over access, relevance, and first world domination. Participants recognized the Internet as a powerful tool for feminist change and were interested in the potentials of cyberfeminism.

Thoughts on Virtual Conferencing

The virtual conference was a “first” for the organizers and I want to share a few “tips” in case they can help you with your own event.

• A virtual conference has the benefit of potentially being accessible to a much larger and more diverse population of participants than an embodied conference. I highly recommend taking advantage of the technology to make your event truly international. At the same time, while a momentum seems to generate almost naturally around an embodied conference, that energy is much harder to produce online. Firmly limiting the conference time frames helped generate sustained activity. Regularly timed activities also allowed participants across a number of time-zones to better schedule their participation.
• Over the five weeks levels of activity varied radically. It was important not to be disheartened by a period of silence as it was often followed by periods of sustained activity. A relatively small percentage of participants posted and many more read only. Having respondents available to comment on particular papers is helpful in ”kick-starting” discussion.
• A virtual conference has certain exclusions, as it requires both material and knowledge access to the technologies of the computer and the Internet. This limitation can be addressed, in part, through organizers involving or creating public access sites, conducting extensive publicity through women’s and community groups, and by organizing brief orientation sessions by volunteers on how to join and navigate the conference.
• The Internet continues to be dominated by English. If a conference is to be multilingual, attention must be directed to the technical requirements of the various languages and to creating an inviting environment for participation in all languages. I recommend that all moderators be fluent in the languages of the conference being organized, if at all possible; as well, particular interventions might be necessary to encourage greater participation in some languages.
• The various habits and cultures of working together online are still in process and therefore there is always the potential for hasty remarks which inflict unintended consequences. This is particularly the case when people are sharing creative work on-line; it is a very difficult thing to “present” a paper virtually. We were very fortunate in our working group to have had both disagreement and respectful and careful expression.
• Often embodied conference presentations become about the performance of the ideas being communicated, as much as about the ideas themselves. This can be daunting to some participants and privileges certain styles of communication. It was very exciting for me to see the intensity, passion and diversity of virtual communication styles that were acceptable and encouraged. Some comments were lengthy and included citations, some were short, others were funny, others were angry; all styles were valid.
• We found that the format of providing material to launch discussion was more effective than just hoping participants would generate their own comments on an issue, or the moderator unduly influencing the discussion through regular postings.
• Participants indicated that while they were thrilled to receive the material, it was too much over a short period of time to synthesize and discuss satisfactorily. The daily digest format for distributing the posts had the benefits of easy recognition of conference material and of participants not being inundated with messages; however, it often resulted in a minimum 24 hour delay between someone posting and seeing her message. Then there was another 24 hours before she could see any responses to her message, and so on. I recommend that potential organizers circulate a maximum of one paper per week and that they seriously weigh the benefits of the digest versus more frequent circulation of posts by the moderator.
• Participants reminded us that can be quite difficult to read very long or complex texts on the screen; not everyone can print their messages. Texts of a maximum of 2,000 to 2,500 words often generated more discussion than longer works. Presenters can include references to other material or make longer versions of papers available privately.
• As a first time moderator of a virtual working group or listserv, I found that the handbook, “Working Together Online” (1997) by Maureen James and Liz Rykert was an invaluable resource. It is distributed by Web Networks and covers moderating tips and much, much more.
• Finally, as with any conference, organizers need to request papers well in advance. The virtual conference offers additional complications of multiple word processing software and various computer platforms. Try to have a very good team of computer technicians on the job; it is very frustrating for presenters when their papers are not circulated when promised or for participants when they are not receiving material. That said, there are inevitably some problems when technology is involved, and we found that generally people were very understanding and helpful.

A virtual conference sits somewhere in-between a “regular” conference and a listserv. It is more accessible, allowing a greater number and diversity of women to “come” to the conference and “speak”, perhaps reducing some embodied hierarchies. While a virtual conference resembles a listserv in many ways, it is more focused and is bounded in time. Participants know that their time commitment will end and so they are more willing and able to participate intensely for that time period. A virtual event values both outraged speech and polite listening and offers a number of interesting advantages and challenges for feminist action. I wish you every success with your own event.

Sheryl Hamilton
Email: snh@alcor.concordia.ca

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