12: "Critical Dialogue Core Group" Participation

GROUP / Name	# Critical Dialogue Messages	% of Critical Dialogue	F2f Activity Quotient	Opinion of CMC for Critical Dialogue (0 - 3)
5 MEMBERS OF CRITICAL DIALOGUE CORE GROUP	24-40 each;156 total	45.7%	5.13 avg (for 4)	2.28 avg
1. Gregory	40	11.7%	---	---
2. Ronald	35	10.3%	5	2.75
3. Buff	31	9.0%	5.5	2.25
4. Marvin	26	7.6%	5	1.88
5. Hillary	24	7.0%	5	2.25
6 REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS TO CRITICAL DIALOGUE	10-13 each;70 total	20.5%	4.0 avg (for 5)	2.38 avg (for 5)
40 OTHER CONTRIBUTORS TO CRITICAL DIALOGUE	1-8 each;115 total	33.7%	3.82 avg (for 27)	1.97 avg (for 31)
TOTAL (n = 51)	341	100%	3.99 avg (for 36)	2.05 avg (for 40)

Discussion

Focusing just on messages categorized as critical dialogue (higher-order discussion primarily about social and political issues or dorm community issues) we find that, as with the e-mail list as a whole (see 11: "Core Group," "Regular," and "Lurker" Participation by Student Residents), a small core group of heavy participators can be identified. In this case, only 5 people contributed 46% of the critical dialogue messages; 4 of the 5 were male (a similar gender pattern to the whole list -- see 13: Core Group Participation by Gender). Gregory (40 messages or nearly 12%) and Ronald (35 messages or over 10%) were the leading contributors to critical dialogue. Hillary, the leading contributor to the e-mail list as whole, contributed the same proportion (7%) of messages to critical dialogue as she did to the list as a whole. Although the core group was responsible for a disproportionate amount of the critical dialogue, I would emphasize the following points in suggesting that the value of critical dialogue was more widespread for the community:

• A majority of critical dialogue (54%) came from residents other than members of the core group.
  
• The 6 regular contributors to critical dialogue, although on average more shy than members of the core group, had the highest opinion of the value of computer-mediated communication (CMC). (See last two columns in table above; for details of the shyness measure, see the Discussion in section 10.)
  
• An impressive 51 residents (60% of the 85 studied) participated at one time or another in critical dialogue on the e-mail list; overall these residents considered CMC to be at least moderately useful for critical dialogue. If we recall from the survey that residents as a whole said they were very active as readers of the dorm e-mail list (2.53) even if they weren't active as writers to the list (1.19) -- and that overall they held a moderately high opinion about CMC -- we can presume that many of the 40% of residents who didn't contribute to critical dialogue still benefitted from the discussion as lurkers/fellow residents.