Electronic Governance: Locals and Cosmopolitans “In and As” a Virtual Academic Community

This investigation revisits Robert Merton’s concepts of “locals” and “cosmopolitans” with respect to academic organizations. It explores the normative structure of electronic governance by analyzing the discourse of a virtual bulletin board. Data from a sample of faculty at a large state university are analyzed to conduct a semi-ethnographic exploratory analysis of the professional role structure and organizational consequences of a virtual academic community. A traditional organizational model used for understanding the public administration of higher education is one of bifurcated governance. In the context of this model, faculty and administration may have separate and conflicting interests. To negotiate and articulate competing interests, members of each constituency organize a formal forum of civil dialogue to initiate and resolve disputes (e.g., faculty meetings; unionized groups such as the American Association of University Professors). Two diverse professional role orientations emerge for airing concerns—locals and cosmopolitans. Formal interactions seem to be a mainstay and vehicle for cosmopolitan interests; locals, who rely more typically on informal discourse, have not found ample outlets for communication. The advent of e-bulletin boards has made possible a virtual community distinguished by norms for both formal and informal discourse, allowing for the clear identification of local and cosmopolitan interests and their competing agenda. The virtual context of discourse was expected to blur the distinctions between locals and cosmopolitans; because of the medium, institutional and local goals become aligned and apparent as opposed to discrepant and inaccessible. But in fact, electronic governance that seems to encourage coalition in the approach to solving tasks makes the demarcation more pronounced, whereupon conflict ensues and the localism and cosmopolitanism professional role structure persists.