GMD Studios has been working with Web Lab since their inception, with a strong emphasis in exploring the Web as an interactive, participatory medium. Early in the summer of 1998, we worked together to develop the first generation of a new approach to online communities, one modeled in part on the salons and literary circles of the late 1800's and early 1900's.
After the closing of the initial experiment with the P.O.V. Salons on PBS Online, Web Lab Supervising Producer Barry Joseph began work on a comprehensive report on the challenges and successes of this new approach to on-line community (even as the second generation of the experiment, Reality Check was being developed for launch.) One section of this report looks at some of the less desirable features of on-line communities that stem from the tension between voyeurism and anonymity in modern society. Barry calls it "Invisible Man Culture".
As online developers, it is so easy to just accept voyeurism and anonymity as "requirements of the audience". Do we have to accept these distortions and build our online communities to fit, or can new metaphors of virtual community help the Web overcome the "desire to see without being seen?"
