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The myth of Equality on the web

We often hear news items about the Internet as the great equaliser, but we can never quite remember where we heard it or who said it. There are reasons for thinking of the Internet in this way, and the logic is as follows. On the Internet, we cannot hear accents or see the aspect of the person who speaks to us. Moreover, we don't even have personalised handwritings. So we could hastily conclude that the Internet breeds equality. That, of course, would be extremely foolish. We can understand communication on the Internet only by undertaking serious research rather than relying on anecdotal evidence. So even if "hearsay" tells us that race, class and gender are a thing of the past in internet communication, we need to investigate further and find out if internet research confirms this perceived trend. Unfortunately, Internet "sociology" is itself still in its infancy, and is having trouble dealing with such a varied and evolving medium as the Internet. Thus, after examining the situation for gender, race and class in Internet communication, we must not rest on our laurels. Whatever trend comes out of this analysis must be analysed to confirm whether it is a new trend specific to the new medium, and if it is likely to continue in the future.

As far as gender is concerned, there are two gaps between males and females: one concerns access to the Internet and one concerns use of the Internet. Although the access gap is not directly caused by gender-specific differences, it is a consequence of socio-economic factors related to gender (Bimber, 2000). The problem seems to start at school, where the boys tend to "hog" the computers by intimidating the girls (Kramarae, 1995). How does this affect Internet communication? If men are more numerous on the Internet, then they will set the guiding rules of Internet communication, which may make it feel alien to females. Ford and Miller (1996) provided some proof by conducting a questionnaire survey of seventy-five students. The female students reported greater levels of disorientation and disappointment with the Internet than the males. Kramarae (1995) also reports female disillusion with Internet communication. However, these concerns may become obsolete within the space of a few years, because more and more women are embracing the Internet and thus helping to redefine its structure. A more recent study in the USA revealed that 41% of internet users were women (McCormack, 1998), thus casting doubt on the Ford and Miller survey produced just two years earlier! In fact, McCormack is very optimistic about women and Internet communication. She cites two surveys which suggest that in the USA, 79% of woman Internet browsers regularly use e-mail and that about one in five visit discussion groups. And there is no reason to think that the situation has worsened since. Even though we can be optimistic about more and more women joining online communication, some may argue that women will nevertheless be exposed to harassment or abusive language. For example, Herring (1999) reported that conversation on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was permeated by harassment of females by males. The harassment was either verbal or took the form of expelling females from the chat group. IRC, like most online discussion fora, is anonymous. This anonymity makes it is difficult to know if participants are male or female unless they want to be identified as such. In this respect, anonymity "protects" individuals from discrimination. But it doesn't remove the issue of gender at all! In fact, it allows chauvinistic views to be expressed without fear of accountability. Thus, anonymity is a double-edged sword which encourages individuals to express discriminatory thoughts without fear of being identified.

The same dual role of anonymity applies to other discriminatory behaviour such as issues of race. Kang (2000) argues that Internet communication can abolish race differences by the virtue of promoting anonymous interaction. But once again, the sacrosanct principle of anonymity protects you as long as you accept not to reveal your race, just like a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe had a chance of escaping torture if he removed all traces of his Jewish identity. But anonymity allows others to express racial hatred without fear, and it prevents any expression of racial identity for fear of being exposed to verbal abuse. In what way is this a positive outcome? In effect, we are all equal in the eyes of the cybernation as long as we all pretend to be White Anglo-Saxon Protestants! Kang (2000) offers a solution: Internet communication can integrate racial groups more efficiently by promoting interaction of racial groups that would not normally interact in the real world. This also applies to contact between different nationalities: it is now possible for an American to come across a Kenyan, a Nepalese etc… in a discussion group, and this interaction may be beneficial to promote cultural interaction and reduce prejudice. But many would see this as wishful thinking, and indeed Kang provides no proof that his theories are already being acted upon. All he is offering is a model of how the Internet has the potential to be an equalising force.

Kang (2000) also briefly mentions class issues in Internet communication. This incurable optimist argues that since all that appears to participants are words on a screen, people cannot discriminate against a lower-class accent or even guess at lower class origins. Implicitly, this means that the only barrier against discrimination is anonymity, and we have already discussed the dangers associated with that. Anonymity implies that you might come across abusive comments about people from your social background and that you will be unable to break your anonymity in order to defend your class, from fear of becoming the target of these abusive comments! Moreover, many surveys have reported class differences in access to the Internet (e.g. Bucy, 2000). Like the gender issue, this will indirectly affect communication on the Internet.

As we have seen, all the supposed equality on the Internet is based on the sacrosanct principle of anonymity. But as mentioned by Wynn and Katz (1997), this anonymity of Internet is illusory. This illusion is exposed when we examine Multi-User Dimensions (MUDs). You can basically create for yourself a completely new persona, which is allowed to say things or perform actions that you would not deem appropriate in real life. But MUDs are just a game. They are an extension of role-playing board games such as "Dungeons and Dragons" whereby the players create different personas represented by information cards and plastic figures. MUDs are just virtual role-play and were in fact designed as such (McCormack, 1998). So while you are in a MUD, your real gender, class or race doesn't matter, but in what way is that an improvement? A MUD won't help you get a job; it won't give you better healthcare, it won't prevent the police or people in the streets from discriminating against you. It won't even prevent people from voicing discriminatory comments against your gender, race or social group. If you reveal you identity to defend your group, then you too can be exposed to discrimination. In IRC, there are no virtual worlds but you are free to use virtual personas (December, 1996). But for this very reason, nobody will take an IRC conversation seriously, which limits the use of your anonymity! In fact, many of the IRC for a are taken over by "cybersex", where the sole result of anonymity encourages people (especially teenagers) to forget social norms and engage in sexually explicit conversation, and thus serious discussion is impossible (Shade, 1996). Equality may exist on IRC, but it serves no purpose. Indeed, people are freer than ever to express exist or racist opinions, because they are not accountable (since they too are anonymous!).

An attempt to exploit anonymity in a more serious context is "usenet" groups. Even in moderated usenet groups, participation is mostly anonymous, leading Barrett (1996) to conclude that equality is promoted: nobody knows your sex, race or class. Of course this is true, but a frequent result, especially in unmoderated groups is "flaming", whereby participants secure in their anonymity hijack the usenet discussion to post abusive or irrelevant messages. The same happens in chat rooms, where even the most serious debate can be turned into a sex room by the intervention of a few individuals. The intervention of a moderator can remove "flaming" but introduces a new human bias into the system: the moderator decides which views are acceptable and which are not, thus exercising a form of discrimination. Thus, you get discriminated against for what you believe rather than who you are. In a way, usenet groups are like broadsheet newspapers, where opinions of readers can be posted without the newspaper checking on the identity of the reader first (Barrett, 1996). So the Internet is not really a great innovation in this respect.

Moving on to an even more formal mode of communication on the Internet, we can examine e-mails sent from individuals to official organisations and businesses. Here you cannot use different personas, since you are trying to establish your credibility either to get a job or obtain some service. Thus you lose your anonymity and your "equality". For example, if you send a job application via e-mail, the recipient company will still ask you for details such as a CV, gender, age, marital status etc…You can give false information, but a background check by the potential employer will end your career prospects.

In any case, e-mail is no more anonymous than a written letter or a phone call. You can send an anonymous written letter just as easily as you could send an anonymous message online. In an embellished version of a true story, Simon Winchester wrote the Surgeon of Crowthorne, which deals with the making of the Oxford English Dictionary in the 19^th Century. The founder of the Dictionary had invited written contributions from the public at large, in order to compile an enormous list of words. He was most impressed by one of the major contributors, whose address was Broadmoor asylum and who presented himself as a doctor treating patients there. Only years later, when the director of the dictionary decided to go and meet this eminent contributor, did he realise that in fact the man was a patient at Broadmoor, serving a sentence for manslaughter. The director was a very open-minded man, but the patient had sought to use a false identity in order to avoid any possible discrimination against him for being a convict (Winchester, 1999). This tale illustrates one simple fact: anonymity has always been possible, and the Internet does not introduce much change in equality as far as our daily lives are concerned.

We must remember that although we are dealing with an electronic medium, the participants are still humans, with all their flaws and prejudices, so there is no reason why anything should change for the better. As we have seen, anonymity is nothing new, and is a double-edged sword: it facilitates discriminatory comments and protects you from those as long as you are willing to forget who you are. But bear in mind that any conclusion we reach today will be outdated tomorrow. So what of the future? Will things get worse or better? The Internet is on the brink of a further revolution: the Internet can now support voice communication, and with the help of web cams visual communication as well (Barrett, 1996). So the impersonal days of "text on the screen" may be numbered, and we may be heading for an all-inclusive communication medium where your appearance, accent and style will once again re-surface for all to observe. The myth of equality on the Internet will then finally be made redundant.

Barrett, N. 1996. The State of the Cybernation. Kogan Page Ltd, London, UK.

Bimber, B. 2000. Measuring the gender gap on the Internet. Social Science Quarterly, 81(3): 868-876.

Bucy, E.P. 2000. Social access to the Internet. Harvard International Journal of Press Politics, 5(1): 50-61.

December, J. 1996. Units of analysis for Internet communication. Journal of Communication, 46(1): 14-35.

Ford, N., & Miller, D. 1996. Gender differences in Internet perceptions and use. ASLIB Proceedings, 48(7-8): 183-192.

Herring, S.C. 1999. The rhetorical dynamics of gender harassment on-line. Information Society, 15(3): 151-167.

Kang, J. 2000. Cyber-race. Harvard Law Review, 13(5): 1130-1208.

Kramarae, C. 1995. A backstage critique of virtual reality. Chapter 2 in: Cybersociety – Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. S. G. Jones Ed. Sage Publications, London.

McCormack, M.L. 1998. What sex is the Internet? Internet and web technologies as social tools and reflections of our inner selves. Futures, 30(9): 923-933.

Shade, L.R. 1996. Is there free speech on the net? Censorship in the global information infrastructure. Chapter 1 in: Cultures of Internet – Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies. Rob Shields Ed. Sage Publications, London, UK.

Winchester, S. 1999. The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Penguin, London, UK.

Wynn, E., & Katz, J.E. 1997. Hyperbole over cyberspace: self-presentation and social boundaries in Internet home pages and discourse. Information Society, 13(4): 297-327.