ABSTRACT
Mailing lists are a useful medium for listening in on communications on particular topics, keeping abreast of developments in particular fields and exchanging views with individuals who have particular interests or areas of expertise. Such considerations do not exhaust the potential usefulness of mailing lists to the social scientist. Past communications on many lists are archived. These can be searched for information on a wide range of matters, factual, conceptual and affective. In addition, mailing lists themselves are interesting subjects of social research respecting their patterns of interaction, online identities, narrative attributes, intensity of communications and characteristics of their participants, to mention a few dimensions.
