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Jack Turner
COMM 605
Dr. Hopson
March 5, 2009

Beyond Teamsterville: Changing Places, Changing Minds

Philipsen‘s “Places for Speaking in Teamsterville” demonstrates that locations

and spaces have symbolic meanings that encourage or suppress certain types of

communication and relationships. For example, the street corner in “Teamsterville”

provides a place for young men and adolescents to share language, values, cultural

norms, and to negotiate identity. Discourse in this place preserves and maintains part of

the culture of the “Teamsterville” neighborhood (2002).

Phillipsen indicates that researchers can use a place as a “heuristic location” to

discover and explore a community’s shared language, personal and group relationships,

and cultural identity (2002). According to Cassell and Tversky, the heuristic location does

not have to exist within physical boundaries, and they provide intriguing research that

supports their claim. Cassell and Tversky theorize that interpersonal networks, social

identity, a sense of belonging, and by extension a shared culture, can be constructed on

the Internet (2006).

This essay compares the signs of community and cultural development between

Philipsen’s “Teamsterville” and a community constructed on the Internet. It describes

recent research by Cassell and Tversky that demonstrates the salience of mostly textual

communication in the construction of an online community (2002, 2006). An extension of

cultural construction theory is discussed in which it is proposed that online communities

can transcend into the “real” world through discourse. Further, the construction of a
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culture of reconciliation developed cooperatively on the Internet between Palestinians

and Israelis is proposed.

Constructing Culture and Crossing Boundaries

Can values and goals established in an online community extend beyond the

Internet and converge with the physical, or “real”, world? The concept that discourse and

language create and maintain communities and cultural values is used here to promote the

idea that online cultural values might transcend the boundary between the virtual and

“real” world. How important to community and culture are physical space, physical

context, physical proximity, and non-verbal communication? In this regard, Cassell and

Tversky have demonstrated that community and cultural construction can exist in an

Internet group organized around common social goals, electronic social networks, and

electronic communication (2006).

Cassell and Tversky analyze a “global community” of international young adults

called The Junior Summit that constructs a unique community and culture over a period

of three months. Casell and Tversky show that participants “self-construct” their

community by systematically establishing cultural norms, creating a common language,

and fulfilling individual’s needs for inclusion and respect. In a five – year follow-up, they

also show that relationships from the Internet community have extended into the daily

lives of many participants (2006).

Formation of Culture Online

The Junior Summit took place in 1998 after thousands of applications for

participation in the three-month project were processed from all over the world. About

one thousand young people participated, mostly 14 to 16 year olds and fairly equal in
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gender. The participants came from the cultures of North and South America, the

Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East. The purpose of the summit was to “connect and

empower motivated youth from all around the world to make their voices heard on issues

concerning young people” (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).

The Junior Summit developed personal and working relationships through mostly

online textual communication. Signs of community construction began to emerge within

weeks. Cassell and Tversky say that participants used the pronoun “I’ much less the more

they worked and communicated together. Conversely, the pronoun “we” was used much

more as the community established itself. A significant development was the change in

the meaning of “we”. Participants at first used “we” in reference to their personal culture,

but later they used it in reference to their online community (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).

Similarities to “Teamsterville”

Similar to “Teamsterville” youth, Junior Summit members expressed a great sense

of support and a strong sense of identity connected to their online community.

Participants described The Junior Summit as a “big extended family”, and a “united

global network of people all over the world. This strong sense of belonging was reported

consistently by Junior Summit members (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).

Both Junior Summit members and “Teamsterville” residents nurture, maintain,

and protect their culture through discourse and established boundaries. Junior Summit

members have established certain boundaries to protect their speaking and language, but

they are not physical boundaries. They are areas of behavior, speaking topics, and

language use that become boundaries which serve to define the Junior Summit

community and culture (2006 Philipsen, 2002; Cassell and Tversky).

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Beyond “Teamsterville”

Self-selection is an important difference between “Teamsterville” and the Junior

Summit community. “Teamsterville” community members are basically born into the

community, or they are outsiders eventually accepted by the community. Self-selection is

minimal, and social pressures against leaving the culture of the “Teamsterville”

neighborhood are enormous (Cassell and Tversky, 2006; Philipsen, 2002).

Junior Summit community members have been allowed a greater measure of free

will in their selection of community and culture than residents of “Teamsterville”. All

Junior Summit members are volunteers with a preconceived social goal, which is

working together on youth-related international issues (Cassell and Tversky, 2006). The

fact that they are initially bound together across many social, economic, and geographic

boundaries by this commitment is a remarkable part of their community history. In this

context, individual identities and personal goals may have superseded the participant’s

original culture. Free will and self-selection may have provided focal points for a new

cultural identification based on certain cross-culture similarities.

Another unique feature of this online community is having an equal voice

regardless of age, gender, heritage, and original culture. Equity in development of

discourse content is also noted. Even though different communication channels may have

existed within leadership roles and responsibilities, 84 percent of participants have stated

that they always felt heard by the community. Interestingly, females have used more

emotional language than males at the beginning of the project, but males have closed the

gap by the end. Discourse about “the future”, a subject that has been associated with
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older community members, is exhibited by younger community members by the end of

the project (Cassell and Tversky, 2006).

Transcending Boundaries

The Junior Summit has demonstrated that places for speaking can transcend

physical space. The emotional significance of a place exists in the minds and shared

discourse of people who identify particular qualities to a place. That place can be where a

confluence of shared values, beliefs, and goals is identified, supported, and maintained.

This confluence can result in a constructed community that interconnects people from

diverse backgrounds in a meaningful way.

Results from Cassell and Tversky suggest that frequent dialogue among multi-

cultural people in cyberspace can develop a place with a unique culture, language, and

norms and values. A type of individual and cultural identity can arise from patterns of

shared speech behavior, constructive relationships, perceived commonalities, and

perceived boundaries. Through repetition of these patterns over time, a cultural history

can be created (2006).

Real Opportunities

Assume that cultural values and identity are dependent on language and discourse.

It follows that an online culture can translate itself into the “real”, physical world by way

of shared discourse. If peaceful coexistence between members of formerly oppositional

cultures can be constructed within a cyberspace community, it may be possible for this

relationship to cross over into the “real” world.

Some researchers are already testing online intercultural interactions to see if they

have a significant effect in the” real “world. Stover has developed an online simulation
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for negotiating conflicts in the Middle East available to anybody in the world who has

access to the Internet. Participants must do a great deal of research and educate

themselves on Middle Eastern history, culture, and current political situations. No data on

“real” world influences from Stover’s project are available at the time of this writing

(Stover, 2008).

Yablon and Katz used a combination of online communication and face-to-face

talks to encourage empathy between Jewish and Arab Israeli students. Adult mentors with

conflict resolution skills worked with the students and stressed “societal values of

understanding, equality, tolerance and peace”. Concurrently, the students communicated

interculturally through a daily online chat room. The results of the study indicated

increased empathy between Jewish and Arab students (2001).

The results of Yablon and Katz’s study suggest that a higher purpose beyond

cultural beliefs might be facilitated by the bonds of an online community. Such a higher

purpose may be seen as a higher power dwelling within shared human bonds of

understanding, trust, and fellowship. The power of these bonds becomes a natural force,

its energy derived from the strength of the whole community. It is a higher power that can

inspire the courage and tenacity needed for reconciliation.

Conclusion

Beyond Place As We Know It

The significance of places for talking can be appreciated by changing the context

of place. We can explore new regions of cultural communication and cultural

construction by thinking of familiar places for talking, such as street corners and coffee
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shops, as a starting point. We can, for example, explore the possibilities and opportunities

for reconciling cultural hostilities in a “peace” community constructed on the Internet.

In cyberspace, where physical, social, and cultural boundaries can be more easily

transcended, it is possible to build a level playing field for all voices to be heard. For

example, opportunities exist for Palestinians to speak with Israelis in a place that can

encourage, and even to a degree enforce, open dialogue without the threat of physical

violence. Repetition of regular communication in this arena might eventually construct a

shared culture based on constructing a peaceful coexistence in the “real” world.

Theoretically, a peace-building culture consisting of Palestinians and Israelis can

be constructed on the Internet and translated into the physical domain. This process can

be viewed as a contextual change that brings potential power to a message of

reconciliation. This potential power might influence message acceptance by the most

important participants in the peace process: Those who are anchored in the physical and

emotional past, but are willing to open the border into a different future.
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References

Cassell, J, Tversky D (2006). The language of online intercultural community formation.

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication ,10. 2, (January 2005).

International Communication Association. Published Online: 23 Jun 2006.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.mutex.gmu.edu/journal/120837937/issue.

Retrieved February 16, 2009

Philipsen, G. (2002). Places for speaking in teamsterville. Readings in Intercultural

Communication: Experiences and Contexts 2nd Edition, Martin, J, Nakayama, T,

Flores, L (Ed.), McGraw Hill, Boston. 192-202.

Stover, William (2008). Information technology and international relations: Using online,

interactive simulations to transcend time, space, and attitudes. Paper presented at

the annual meeting of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, San Jose

Marriott, San Jose, California, Feb 22, 2008 Online.

<http://www.allacademic.com/ meta/p245618_index.html. Retrieved February 15,

2009.

Yablon Y.B., Katz Y.J. (2001). Internet-Based group relations: A high school peace

education project in Israel. Educational Media International, 38, 2-3.175-182(8).