Is there a relationship between the factors that contribute to a CoPs success and the reception theories articulated by Wolfgang Iser and Hans Robert Jauss? When one examines the expectations that CoP members must consider as they participate in online repositories or virtual chats it becomes clear that CoP members write baring their audience already in mind, allowing the audience to influence the content of a publication, as proposed by Jauss and Iser.
When writing for a CoP or to collaborate, the authors are suddenly confronted by a new dynamic to that of not facing their readers’ immediate reactions: his or her audience is very much present in the day-to-day interactions of an organization. Most importantly, not only is the author’s audience present, but this audience is charged with the responsibility of extracting knowledge from the author’s postings. The following implies a certain level of analysis and evaluation from the audience’s behalf. In the process, the act of sharing knowledge is formalized and writers, or CoP participants become accountable for the information they distribute unto other CoP members, who act as more than an audience. The increased proximity of the audience creates a new dynamic that goes beyond reception theory, which evaluates the interaction between writer and audience. In the case of CoPs, the audience is not only an audience, but an empowered body of judgment and evaluation. The audience represents a group of peers that the author can:
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a. recognize and identify
AND THE AUTHOR CAN SUBSEQUENTLY
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b. anticipate areas of interest or solicited themes, according to personal interaction in the organization
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c. anticipate judgment and ascribe consequences to these judgments.
What thus happens, when this dynamic has changed, when authors must react to the immediate needs and foreseeable reactions to a text? In this case, I would recommend that KM theory delve into and attempt to establish a relationship with how raconteurs in oral traditions have dealt with the immediate threat or presence of their audience.
Storytellers from oral traditions deal with community members and their proximity. They must adapt their texts to the conditions of their current environment to be sure that the details of the content remain relevant, and that the content itself remains interesting to the crowds. I suggest that better understanding this relationship may act as an enabler to communities of practice. Seeing as how the presence of the “audience as peers” can act as both a motivation and a deterrent to writing, it would be interesting to study how storytellers manage the proximity of their audiences.
A comparison between these tactics and conditions might help determine which conditions act as enablers to CoP authoring and participation, and which ones lead to stagnation. It might help make KM participants be more sensitive to the ambiental factors that help determine when a narrative or text is relevant, and when it is necessary to modify an intended text.
This blog entry was originally written for Communities of Practice, a McGill University School of Information Studies course, under Professor Venkatesh.
