THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF AN ELECTRONIC BAR - THE LESBIAN CAFE

This article describes an electronic lesbian bar, the Lesbian Cafe (LC ), which was created as a computer bulletin board system (BBS) on a ma jor on-line computer service. Little has been,written on BBS, but lite rature on a senior citizen BBS and on computer dating has shown that t here are advantages to meeting people and interacting via the computer The primary purposes of examining the LC were to discover how a commu nity could be created and sustained through interaction restricted to the computer and to determine what functions were served by it. Daily ''activities'' at the LC were observed by computer, and patrons were i nterviewed privately and in groups via electronic mail, via telephone, and in person. Results show that the appearance of the LC is affected both by the appearance of real-world bars and by the computer as a co mmunication medium. This study also found that four types of patrons-r egulars, ''newbies,'' ''lurkers,'' and ''bashers''-collectively form t his lesbian cyberspace community. These findings challenge the traditi onal notion of community by demonstrating that a community can be crea ted in a different kind of space.