Entering Cyberspace

Joining the Electronic Seminar

From participating in one-on-one conversations and helping organize small-group workshops and large-group panel presentations since late 1993, I have observed that enumerating the professional advantages I derived from the "virtual" aspect of my academic and professional life generates interest, questions -- and subsequent involvement among undergraduates, graduate students, and staff. The same advantages can accrue to other professionals in Asian Studies.

By Vincent Kelly Pollard

The Internet is a network of computer networks in cyberspace. There are many points of entry, each offering specific benefits. One is the e-mail discussion "list." The minimum for getting started is a personal computer, modem, and telephone line, or access to personal or shared e-mail accounts at your university.

Discussion lists
What is a "list"? A list is a special kind of electronic seminar. Like signing up for a seminar, one must subscribe to a list. This requirement differentiates lists from the notorious newsgroups with which some Internet users may be familiar. One sends a subscription command to the listserver; thereafter, one is enabled to participate in discussions by posting e-mail to the list -- or simply by "lurking" in the background reading (or deleting) communications posted by other subscribers. Every subscriber in the group -- whether there are fifty or five hundred -- receives every message anyone else posts to the list.
The listserver's electronic address is different from that of its corresponding list. It may be helpful to think of the listserver (often shortened to listserv as an impersonal computer "guard" who permits personal computerized exchanges between human beings on the list. For example, the listserv address for PhilippineStudies-L, an interdisciplinary and international list is listserv@coombs.anu.edu.au, while the list address is philippinestudies@coombs.anu.edu.au. In sending the typical subscription command, one leaves the subject line blank; and omits any extra spaces or punctuation The subscription command is your message, and the computer will not understand it if you embellish it with extra spaces or punctuation. (Thus, if you have a "signature file," you must turn it off.) Usually, a subscriber receives (1) confirmation of the subscription, (2) an electronic memo outlining the expectations of the list manager and members, and (3) a friendly invitation to introduce oneself and one's interests to the rest of the list membership.

May anyone join any list? A list "owner" may "screen" prospective subscribers, asking them to answer a brief questionnaire. Membership fees for academic list memberships are not common. Typically, list owners and managers just decide how much discussion there will be and on what kinds of topics. Increasingly, list managers (and, occasionally, subscribers) may set and enforce standards encouraging civility and discouraging "flaming" cybernetic insults and criticisms.

What kinds of lists are available?
There are at least 3,000 political science-focused lists. PSRT-L, the Political Science Research and Teaching List, periodically makes available to its subscribers a compilation of these lists, their focus and their electronic addresses. To subscribe to the Political Science Research and Teaching List, send the command subscribe PSRT-L to the following Internet address: listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu. Or, if you are familiar with gopher, one may dig up "The Political Science List of Lists" at gopher://rs600.cmp.ilstu.edu: 70/00/depts/polisci/list of.

If your interests are more historically oriented, H-NET (Humanities On-Line) already offers fifty-seven lists. Each has an editor and a board of moderators. Their focus ranges from women's history and Asian history to quantitative history. For more information on the rest of the H-NET lists, sent a request to Richard.Jensen@uicvm.uic.edu. In reply, you will receive an informative electronic memo. To subscribe to H-Asia, the Asian history list, send your subscription command subscribe H-Asia to listserv@uicvm.uic.edu.

On the other hand, if you prefer regular discussion about statistical packages, lists focused on SAS and SPSS may offer the kind of intellectual stimulation you desire. Still others centre on Asian Studies, technology and privacy, environmentalism, distance education, security studies, or political philosophy. Somewhere, there is a list matching your interests. Send the command (message) list global to listserv@listserv.net. There is no period at the end of that address; again leave the subject line blank. Again, no punctuation. In reply, you will receive a short message with further instructions outlining your options.

Why should you subscribe to a list?
Some Internet enthusiasts have romanticized the bumpy "information highway." So, why should Asian studies professionals subscribe to lists? I will limit my supporting arguments to actual examples showing how I have benefited from active participation since late 1993. Participating in Internet lists can (a) speed completion of individual and group projects, term papers, dissertation chapters, conference presentations and (b) otherwise improve their quality. Specifically, the Internet puts scholars in touch with professionals who can help a person accomplish what he or she has already set out to do. Internet resources may suggest additional questions to ask about research you have already undertaken. Lists make possible a dimension of collaborative research beyond the reach of many researchers, especially if one's financial resources are limited. Therefore, seek and find congenial virtual sites in comparative politics and international relations where you can read, discuss, contribute, and learn.

What is the "recipe" that I have followed in all my dealings with scholars and other people out there on the Internet. If you know what kinds of discussions and information you are looking for and why, "Pollard's Formula" calls for a judicious mix of (1) subscribing to lists and (2) supplementing this with private e-mail.

What kinds of results are possible? And how can you achieve the same results that I will enumerate below?

- Free subscriptions to newspapers and journals. You can get a free subscription to electronic periodicals like China News Digest (send a blank message to cnd-info@cnd.org for subscription information) or The Pyongyang Post yip@realm.net. If you have been frustrated by the notoriously low quality of some nonsubscription-based newsgroups, then having the international news or a book review delivered to your e-mail box may be a solution.

- Intellectual stimulation. "Instant seminar" and "instant tutorial" are two phrases that leap into my mind upon receiving immediate feed-back, comments, or criticisms on ideas I have been developing in my conference papers, journal articles, and doctoral dissertation. Does one ever meet the "virtual people" face-to-face? Yes! It happens to me about once every five months.

- Expanded professional networking. The social, interpersonal aspect of lists and private e-mail inexpensively expands one's professional networking. Some scholars have helpfully answered a questionnaire I distributed on four major discussion lists during August 1994 in order to pre-test the likely generalizability of inferences from my non-random sample of case studies of foreign decision making by the government of the Philippines since 1960. Meanwhile, it is stimulating to follow reports, discussions, and debates by recognized scholars and newcomers alike in areas of intense interest to me. And I keep in touch with panel organizers on lists and by private e-mail. Also, your "virtual colleagues" will post World Wide Web (WWW) Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) you can use for your own purposes. Giving advice and helping people can, in turn, be helpful to you. Sooner or later, you will meet your "virtual advisors" and "virtual advisees" face-to-face.

- Publication opportunities. By "snail mail" in early March 1995, I received the page proofs for another article. My analysis of United States-Japan-Southeast Asia relations during the period 1945-1970 has since been published in the Bulletin of Asian Studies, a journal sponsored by the Association of Asian Studies, Japan. How did I learn about that opportunity? One of its editors issued a call for articles on H-DIPLO listserv@uicvm.bitnet, an international history list with hundreds of members. I am one of them. Before being accepted for publication, of course, my article went through the normal peer review processes. And as I revise the present essay for the IIAS Newsletter, I have just received page proofs for an essay I submitted to China Review International (edited at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa) while I was still in Southeast Asia. Almost all communications with the managing editor were by e-mail.
- Employment opportunities. Political science and international history lists routinely publish job ads for university teaching positions. Other lists provide the same kind of service to their members.

- Scholarship and grant information. How can you use Internet lists and private e-mail to help fund your research? In December 1993, I used private e-mail to clarify some details and, thereby, to facilitate successful completion of an application for a summer language grant. In a much more intense Fulbright grant application process, I circulated draft proposals on the Internet to a dissertation committee member then teaching in Spain and to a researcher in Australia. Meanwhile, Hawai'i friends in the Professor Michael Haas' Comparative Politics/International Relations Group received and criticized several drafts by e-mail.

- Free books and conference papers. Authors of forthcoming books and givers of conference papers increasingly make copies of their work available to other scholars over the Internet. And you can make your own papers, articles, and book chapters available to others on the Internet by first advertising their availability on the lists to which you have subscribed. (You may want to make them available as compressed files accessible by a file transfer protocol.)

How does one find out about the "best" lists to join?
I have given some addresses above. But you can also just ask your friends, teachers, and colleagues. If you begin by joining just one list, then ask the same question again of the subscribers on that list. Members of one list on the Internet are often members of multiple lists and may have suggestions for you. This is how I got started.

- Summary of results. Joining and actively participating in cybernetic lists gives you a "jump start" into a dynamic information technology. To repeat, "Pollard's Formula" calls for a judicious mix of two elements: (1) selective subscription to electronic lists; and (2) private e-mail.

- Personal dynamics. Thus far, I have focused mainly on results. But what personal dynamic facilitate this wealth of information coming to me? The new technologies may be necessary, but they are not sufficient.

- Social skills for cyberspace. (1) To derive the kinds of benefits that I continue to receive on the Internet, one must be willing to introduce oneself to strangers. It is worth the effort. You will discover that some of them may be scholars or other experts previously known to you only by reputation or through their publications. (2) Of course, politeness is essential. (3) You will be more productive if you can ask very precise questions. But every one of those skills and qualifications should already be familiar to you since they also facilitate everyday face-to-face conversations. (4) Finally, extend yourself to help others, as well. In most cases, they will appreciate your contributions.

Cyberspace magnifies one's personal strengths and weaknesses in face-to-face conversations a hundredfold. Thus, an internal "editor" may help you avoid igniting the next "flame war." You may need to restrain yourself from responding to every last questionable statement you happen to read on the Internet. Remember: Brilliant contributions and small-minded, pompous indiscretions may be crossposted and forwarded around the planet in nanoseconds. If you are going to disagree with someone, it does not hurt, first, charitably to reconstruct the other person's argument in several different ways--just to avoid setting up a "straw man" that is easy to attack.

The principles outlined above are generally applicable. Many professionals would be delighted to settle for just half the results I have summarized above. If you are such a person, then I encourage you to continue learning how to use the Internet. Other associates of mine who made similar efforts have derived similar personal, professional and financial advantages from subscribing to and participating in cybernetic e-mail discussion lists.

If your priorities include enhancing your professional life, you owe it to yourself to join the appropriate Internet community. To put all of this in a broader perspective, my summary of list-related benefits reflects a very small part of what you can derive from a growing wealth of resources available today on the Internet and elsewhere in cyberspace.

Vincent Kelly Pollard's essay expands his presentation sharing "The Dean's Award" in 1995 for the 'Best Monday Noon Seminar" at the East-West Center. Pollard was recently a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the Philippines. He is completing his doctoral dissertation in comparative politics and international relations at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.