An Obscure Object of Communicational Desire: The Untold Story of Online Chat

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, it seeks to provide the reader with an overview of the literature on online synchronous text conferencing (also known as “chatting”). The chapter then offers a critical account of the genealogy of online chat, understood as a series of devices (protocols, programs, features), technological metaphors, and practices. Existing scholarship has addressed various dimensions of online chat – linguistic, pragmatic, cultural, social, psychological, organizational – but lacks a historical, diachronic perspective on this form of computer-mediated communication. The authors take on the task of disentangling the many threads and crossing trajectories of chat devices and practices, from the early days of chat to its recent developments. Beyond a mere genealogy of artifacts, this account focuses on a number of factors that establish continuity in the narrative. First, users’ nearly universal desire to chat on whatever communication device is at hand. Second, administrators’ repression against the misuse (or abuse) of digital resources that seeks to establish manageable boundaries. Third, the persistence of chat as a participation framework in the form of written conversations, despite major advances in the underlying technologies. These observations contribute to restoring chat to its place as a major thread within Internet history and the broader trajectory of media and communications.