During a 6-month period analyzed in this study, a small number of ideologically like-minded participants dominated a listserve created in a small Midwestern city for discussion of public-policy issues. That dominant group exerted an oligarchy of opinion that led to online discussions about, and raises larger questions about, whether the listserve was achieving its goal of “creating a community-wide discussion.” This study examines two controversial issues about which the preponderance of opinion expressed online did not reflect the preponderance of opinion expressed in letters to the editor in two newspapers in the same city and, in one case, at the ballot box. Also examined are online conversations about how the dominant opinion on the listerve may have caused some subscribers to participate as “lurkers” rather than as writers who expressed their opinions online.
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