I did a survey of all of the discussion entries on H-Film during the months of June, September, and November 2004. Over one hundred entries were examined.
Who is involved in the discussion?
H-Film claims to be an "international electronic discussion group." Its fileserver is located at Michigan State University and it is intended as a forum for film historians to "discuss research interests, teaching methods and the state of historiography."
Who are the members of the discussion community?
In addition to academics, I found entries from students, book publishers, librarians, and general film "buffs." Subscriptions are free and anyone is invited to subscribe so my discovery that only half of the entries were from academics is not surprising.
What is being discussed?
Although H-Film caters to film historians and invites the sharing of syllabi, bibliographies, new research, etc., I could find nothing of this nature in the entries I surveyed. Although professors were, by far, the most prolific contributors, the most frequent kind of entry had to do with invitations to submit proposals to present papers at various conferences. The second most common entries were responses to inquiries from various subscribers regarding film-related issues or concerns. In June there were over ten entries regarding Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 911 and in September there were a number of responses to an inquiry about the definition of "punk cinema."
Is on-line discussion serving purposes not provided by other media?
Certainly the large number of requests for conference proposals could have been advertised in academic journals though they would not have reached as broad an audience. There were several reviews for new books and well as notifications of job openings that could just as well have appeared in journals. However, the inquiries, and the immediacy of the multiple responses, could only have been accomplished on-line. In what other media could a student doing research on "punk cinema" have gotten responses from film scholars from around the world?
Are online communities 'real' communities?
My Oxford Dictionary provides three definitions of "community." The first is "a group of people living in one place." Online communities do not meet this standard. The second definition is "a group of people with a common religion, race, or profession." Since on-line communities include members of a common profession (e.g., film scholars) then they might fit this definition. The dictionary's third definition of community is "the holding of attitudes or interests in common." Since on-line communities exist because of common interests, then, according to this definition, they are in fact "real" communities. However, based on my admittedly cursory examination of H-Film, in which only two contributors' names appeared more than once, it is hard to imagine any kind of community, "real" or otherwise, emerging from this kind of ephemeral interaction. The potential of H-Film to be a genuine source of meaningful exchanges between film scholars, many of whom undoubtedly know one another, seems to be untapped. If film historians took advantage of this potential, then H-Film could be a "real" community.