From: Anita Colyer

Date: 23 Apr 1993 07:27:06

Subject: some ethnography stats

To: cinema-l@auvm.bitnet

I thought you all might be interested in hearing about some of what I'm finding in my ethnographic study of cinema-l. What I've been doing is this . . . every day I print out all the messages from the list, and every night I take them home and sort them--usually I pop a movie into the VCR (last week The Rapture, this week Casablanca, tonight it'll be West Side Story) to watch while I read. Reading about movies while watching movies. An interesting intertextual experience. ("The Germans wore gray; you wore blue . . . Play it, Sam; if she can stand it, I can too . . . ") Here's some statistical information related to cinema-l, collected (so far) from 3/31/93 through 4/19/93.

Total number of messages printed out: 788

Average number of messages on a weekday (Mon. thru Fri.): 53

Average number of messages on a weekend day (Sat. or Sun.): 9

Overall average number of messages per day (workday and weekend): 39

Lots of messages, folks, lots of interesting commentary.

Next step: dividing messages by gender.

Average percentage of messages from women per day: 19

Average percentage of messages from men per day: 78

Average percentage of contributors per day who are female: 27

Average percentage of contributors per day who are male: 69

Astute readers will note that these figures do not add up to 100%. This is because some people merely sign initials, or have names that could be either gender.

Summed up, then, my statistics show that more men than women post messages, and that men are more likely than women to post more than one message a day. "Top posters" (those who post the most messages for a day) have been, on every occasion, men.

Curiously, I turned to the list of cinema-l members. Here's what I found.

118 females, 168 males, 37 can't tell (subscriber just used initials, or has an ambiguous name--for example, Chris could go either way), 17 are listservs. So . . . 35% of cinema-l members are female, 49% male, 10% can't tell, and 5% listservs (or bulletin boards).

Hmm. The male/female ratio is closer than the "number of messages" statistic and the "number of contributors" statistic would indicate. Anybody have any suggestions as to why this phenomenon is occurring? I'd be happy to hear them, on or off the list. (My e-mail address is at the bottom of this message.)

Next phenomenon. Number of contributors per day. Varies from 2 or 3 on weekend days to a high of 36 on weekdays. Yet the membership roster indicates that there are between 300 and 350 members of cinema-l.

This is a phenomenon that I've heard referred to as "lurking." I must admit I'm extremely curious. Lurkers, who are you and what are you doing out there? Why don't you write to the list? The silent majority that never posts . . . (you never call, you never write; we were worried sick).

Please, lurkers. Feel free to contact me directly or on the list. What do you get out of cinema-l? Who are you, and what do you think of discussions or postings on the list? But my biggest question is: why don't you post?

Anyone, please feel free to comment . . .

On or off list.

Anita

afc1@psuadmin or afc1@oas.psu.edu

p.s. to my interview volunteers: if I haven't heard from you yet, please take a few minutes to answer the questionnaire I sent you. If you need another copy because it got inadvertently tossed into a wastebasket somewhere, or if you're having problems getting me the signed consent form, please let me know. And thanks again for participating. I'm really enjoying this project, and I appreciate your help.