The H-Net Discussion Network’s H-Rhetor online discussion group provides a forum to discuss rhetoric, communications studies, and teaching. Its membership appears to be composed of a very specialized community of university faculty who teach rhetoric, literary theory, communications, and history.
This site provides primarily institutional support and teaching support for the online community. For institutional support, the site is used for announcements of faculty openings, conferences, and fellowships. However, most of the online discussions center on teaching support. Posters seem to fall into two major categories. This groups consists of poster who ask for appropriate references for a variety of communications or rhetoric subjects. The second group focuses on teaching strategies for classes related to communications and rhetoric.
Though the forum also has several threads devoted to scholarly discussion, I did not find these threads particularly enlightening or useful. Instead, most scholarly inquiries received four-five replies with references to secondary works or studies. In only a few cases did scholars actually argue the merits of various points of view or schools of thought. However, the site seems to augment the professional journals of speech communication and rhetoric. In fact, many of the comments posted to this forum parallel discussions being made in journals such as the Southern Communication Journal or the Western Communication Journal. Most of these types of posts occurred prior to 2000, so I believe that members of this online community are now using it primarily for institutional support. Also, I searched the site by contributors since I have a good understanding for some of the “heavy hitters” in the field of the history of rhetoric. Of a field of twenty people, I found only three who posted to the site—and all posted before the close of 2001. Judging from the number and quality of posts, I would say that this site has been in decline since 1997—focusing less on critical inquiry and more on institutional support.
As a non-specialist in the field of communications, I found the site to be quite sterile. I am currently writing a paper on presidential characterizations of our enemies in their rhetoric. I used several keyword searches, string searches, and subject searches to inform my writing efforts. With the exception of a few references to very well known studies, I found nothing of value. The posts were either too generic to be useful, or they actual subjects became segues for other lines of inquiry.
Aside from the question-and-answers aspect of the online forum, the site is providing nothing that existing journals of rhetorical or communications studies are already providing.
I would also characterize the long-standing members of this forum as a professional community, but I believe that their membership in this forum is incidental to wider associational ties within the community of scholars of rhetoric and communications studies. As such, this forum probably promotes offline associations and professional ties. Further, the forum aids its members who are widely separated geographically. With this definition, the group involved within this forum fulfills the requirements for community based on Wellman and Gulia.