Threaded Email Messages in Self-Organization and Science & Technology Studies Oriented Mailing Lists

The paper addresses the potential of Internet mailing lists to enhance academic research with respect to Gibbons' distinction between Mode I and Mode II knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994). We examine threaded email messages in a selection of Self-Organization and Science & Technology Studies oriented Internet mailing lists to illustrate the internal dynamics involved in the electronic production of knowledge. Of particular interest is the EuroCon-Knowflow mailing list which houses the electronic communication of the Self-Organization of the European Information Society (SOEIS) research group. The research focuses upon the discussion threads of mailing lists. The use of threaded messages as our hermeneutic units of analysis provides the basis for a reflection upon three key theoretical positions: Medium Theory, Actor-Network Theory, and Self-Organization Theory. With respect to the latter, we measure for self-organized criticality by comparing the frequency and size of threaded messages. Using this and other methods as operationalized modes of theorizing we reveal network dynamics particular to the Internet mailing list.